Low Tide, County Line
The motel squats between marsh and highway, a two-story bruise with flickering numbers that can’t decide what year it is. Inside, the air smells like coins and bleach, unwashed bodies and dashed hopes. I’m here to return a car I never rented. The clerk doesn’t ask questions his face already shaped by other people’s lies. Outside, the marsh exhales. Water pulls itself back inch by inch, revealing beer cans, a sneaker, the white rib of something that once moved. I grew up twenty miles from here, close enough to know better. This is where my father taught me how to keep my mouth shut, how to count cash without looking, how the eyes can see before the eyes see. A woman smokes under the stairwell, barefoot, robe cinched tight, phone glowing like a confession she won’t send. She asks if I’ve got a light. I do. We share it. That’s the whole story between us fire, then smoke, then nothing owed. Down the road, a billboard promises forgiveness in block letters big enough to see from space. Below it, a pawn shop buys wedding rings, tools, instruments meant for breathing. Everything has a price when the water goes out. The car coughs awake. The clerk waves without looking up. Behind me, the marsh fills itself back in, hiding the evidence, rehearsing innocence. By morning, no one will remember what was almost found here. That’s how this place survives by staying useful, by staying quiet, by knowing exactly how much can be buried before the tide turns.
by Gloria Ogo, retrieved from The Rumpus on July 16, 2026.
Invitation: “This is where my father taught me…”
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Gloria Ogo is an award-winning Nigerian writer based in the United States. She received the 2024 Brigitte Poirson Literature Prize, and her poetry and fiction have been finalists or longlisted for several national literary awards. Her work has appeared in a variety of literary journals, and she holds an MFA in Creative Writing. You can find more of her books HERE.
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August Courageous Citizen
Lois Gibbs
What inspires me about Lois Gibbs, who had no aspiration to be an advocate, is that she became one once she knew about how bad the chemical toxins were in her neighborhood in Love Canal. She fought for her own sick child. And, she believed she had to fight for the people who lived in her community.
“The dioxin story is the story of how science has failed to provide us with answers, how corporations control policymaking and decisions in our society, and how government is silenced.”
Lois Gibbs - Americans Who Tell the Truth
Jean & Pat - In the Commons, Pat Mulroy, and 2 others
Aug 1
Lois Gibbs - An American Who Tells the Truth
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I grew up in southern Louisiana, in the midst of marshes and an hour from the Gulf Coast. Gloria Ogo's depiction of this motel and the low tide is familiar to me. This line -- "Behind me, the marsh fills itself back in, hiding the evidence, rehearsing innocence" captures the place and some of the feelings of my growing up. Thank you Circles of Courageous Commons for this poem and reflection.
These hotels/motels exist every where in the US. In my northern Michigan world it’s on the edge of a village between the county road and the woods . In suburbia, it’s the hotel in Auburn between US 10 and a Taco Bell. It’s the reality of the American underclass, living one paycheck to the next, one subsidy to the next, one health crisis to the next.