Sunday, March 13, 2011

in prep for summer

Here's a poem that first appeared in my thesis and subsequently in The White Pelican Review. Pasted here for your encouragement if it happens to be close to home.


Ratio in Drought


The reservoir recedes. The shore

Is fishing lures and mussel shells.

In sorghum muck the heron stalks

A glimmering of fish. She knees

Along her way in snapshots while

Her crook of neck uncoils to meet

The spot where she’ll be next.

With waders hitched above his gut,

A thin man floats a feathered fly

Into a cranny dimpled

By invisible mosquitoes.

A twelve-deep stack of notices

At home, a tumor in his young

Son’s head, he comes to cast and jig,

To swallow the fist in his throat.

A bass erupts through gathered froth

And pauses, still-life for a blink,

Then flops, darts for waters cool

Beneath the jutting bluffs. The man

Is happy for the miss, the chance

To try again. The bird ascends.

A bloated, tallow-bellied cloud

Slugs in the distance—steady, slow.

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