John Muro
A primordial landscape wells up from water,
brimming with lime-white froth,
and the air is thick with wind that clenches
rancid odors drenched
in salt-rimmed pools of charred cloth
and the further
banks are littered with olive-green
bladderwrack. The pungent
reek from the damp felt of marsh;
mid-air, a rash
of flies, tiny accents
in mackerel-blue sheen.
Now, no longer a harbor
but what comes after--
a glistening expanse of opal grain,
sand spits that remain
stranded above water;
pursed mouths of waves crusted over.
Moonlight unevenly scours
the overturned hulls of boats and the bay's
a paten of pale gold and black;
wind eels its way thru marsh and back,
the rank smells of decay
are what water now moves towards.
