the water will reclaim you

our sisters made their mouths
rich with silt from downvalley

it coiled like snakes across
the softness of our bellies

our tongues are stopped with mud
sawgrass scrapes in our bowels

but we still keep good kith
with worm and fish and fowl

see! a dotterel drifts near
winking needlehole eyes

she has shed all her feathers
to make room for the flies

the cottonmouth swallows
there are hairs in his throat

and the bare-shouldered sky
bruises black and brown with smoke

poor chuck’s widow whippors
to us, come, darling, come—

we will all wash our bones
in the light of the sun

we will bare all our bones
in the light of the sun

’til our eyes are ripe with copper
or the waves reach kingdom come

+Translations

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