Between the Devil and the Deep / Lindsay Bland

 Between the Devil and the Deep Lindsay Bland dancing girl press, 2010 Lindsay Bland holds an MFA from the University of Montana and currently lives and writes in Milwaukee. TO NORTH AND SOUTH You seemed for so long the inseam of my jeans as I stood between a park and the water and felt no direction in it, in my standing there or when I was a young girl and let wind pull to get rest. At which point I was rediscovered. When I looked for you I would always fix my gaze on a point above the mouth of a stranger. I would face toward the Mississippi and wonder what could cross it. In Missouri, in “The Civil Defense” caves I thought to myself I live in a world where I can rub against you, you a crucifix and religion. It was in this cave I first taught myself about god, and which way to look. You had run away from home, to the cave where you demonstrated the precision with which you cut for yourself our land. Those days I had no hand-eye coordination, nor desire to handle a blade. Often yo