Year by year the pond
puckered into marsh,
stifling orange carp

hanging within its reeds,
feints of light
in silt-drab water:

glints long wasted
bleached to spines
cling to mud banks

slick as frog skin.
Sunk amid cattails,
bold skiff of odysseys

rots into relic
as the pond’s failing font
seeps away from itself like a stain.

06/26/2012

Posted on 06/27/2012
Copyright © 2024 William F Dougherty