Let me be acres of high grass
absorbing the May swamp
in a cattail way, redwings
landing in the generous marsh of me.
Let small birds make a breeze
a foot or two above me, fluttering
across my chest, or even landing there.
They seem light as moths, and their claws
don’t hurt when they squeeze
the reeds of me, clinging in wind.
I’ll be the dank host the heron
steps across. He lifts his slow, bony legs
and his feet skim the lily pads
atop the muck of my left shoulder,
my right knee. It tickles, though pieces of me
drift, dissolve and sink. I shred.
The heron moves in a cautious,
weary way, monkish, bluish prophet,
his neck a holy rope, coiled—till it
springs the beak that flashes.
The indifferent carp are deadly slow.
Pay attention, fish. A plodding bird-bulk
looms, a hairy spy with a lightning blade.
I’m the mud witness, and this is where I lie,
a congregation of one in the hall of mayhem,
dark water, where herons slaughter fish
among green reeds that lightly sway.
