the Wake

A woman nudges a snakeskin,
its head burst cleanly through.
She knows it steals between cypress knees
under the boardwalk,
where one can wander
and contemplate decay
and watch a pair of turtles
huddle atop a slumping limb,
one propped against his fellow.
This is how the turtles watch
when the woman nudges a pebble
off the boardwalk into the bayou.

When she leans over the railing,
nothing human returns. To step off the pier
in a single motion would be immediate.
Beyond the spitting horseflies, an airboat
shakes the cattails. Scientists whisk
through open waters: businesslike,
baring underwater graves.

A turtle wobbles into the water. Its wake slows
before it can reach the tourist, who recedes
with an unconscious release of the rail.

White Alligator Narrates Hurricane Katrina

The glass-tapping has been missing for some time now,
and so has the chum. I blithely eat my tank-mates:
the sauger and a young bass.

The not-sun has dimmed and the tank-water has settled
like mud. I roll back eyelid after eyelid to see
how it thickens, tarlike.

I cannot hear my tank-mates heave their gills
around me. The surface of our almost-lake
rises, pulls us toward the opaque not-sky.

A smaller not-sun went out too, submerged
in souring water. I rest my claws on the log, cold,
another tank-mate’s body bumping my snout.