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Unimaginable Narrow Estuaries













Ash and Dust Down River


The Book of Common Prayer

tells us it’s all ash and dust. Yet we know


in our saliva that life begins in wetness,

swamp and muck, hot breath,


mouth full of watery moans,

slippery fingers and tongues, oceanic


crashes, explosion of semen

into dark fallopian creeks, that viscous


egg sac, rush of amniotic fluid, the bloody

crowning, vernix and red streaked


plasma clinging to the wailing newborn

sliding into humid air,


an amphibian at the breast,

milk dribbling down the chin, wet


diapers, dripping nose, rivulets of tears

flowing down the river


of dreams all the way

to the end, as if there is an end to dreams


in airless wooden boxes passing through

flames or disappearing


in earth, dry and sandy, rich and loamy,

it doesn’t matter, water


always prevails, dark clouds floating

across the sky, rains flooding


thirsty plains, seeping into

cracks becoming underground aquifers,

pooling in deep crevasses of the dripping

planetary soul as we paddle


unimaginable narrow estuaries of eternity,

bending back willow


branches, leaning over gunwales, reaching

down beyond any arm’s length


into the steamy muck, handfuls

of life dripping through our cupped fingers


—SL, Port Royal, SC, January 2023




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