Blues

She cooks

puritanical meals on cobalt dishes

in a kitchen of bluish-grays.

Each course is pesticide free,

with navy beans

and bluegill sautéed crisp

in soy butter,

a zinfandel with the slightest hint of berries

and a cobbler of indigo fruit.

She flaunts her sapphires

telling us all they’re blue diamonds,

but we know the truth,

the obvious predilection for everything

above the blue collar line,

the fibs as overblown as a beluga whale.

We’re all guilty of indulgences.

To celebrate the second monthly moon we gather,

the denim-washed brigade, the oyster cult,

the lovers of moldy cheese,

to hear our host in periwinkle shawls

remark again why the sad and lonely

moon finds one shade

most worthy of reflection.

In the Gator’s Woods

1.                 Charon the demon, with eyes of glowing coal,
   

2.                 beckoning them, collects them all;
   

3.                 he beats with his oar whoever lingers.
   

4.                 (Canto III, Inferno)
   

With beef lung for bait Jimmy Long went hunting,

rowing, peering into the Withlacoochee waters like a loyal river rat.

He slayed three gators

in payment for the 69-year-old man, swimming with his dog.

(It was only a tiny bite…)

Ferrying the damned

gators home Long ducked

under the saw palmetto and cabbage palm;

a laughing gull taunted a mourning dove.

I debated revenge in ignorance.

In the Kanapaha gardens through dense foliage gates

the toothache tree bent towards the bog garden,

leading the nose to rosemary, where one could pause long enough

to catch a wave of baby toads.

There was no hint of the eleven-foot gator that had weeded

water lilies with sharp teeth and toes.

If the papers were to be believed,

he’d been harpooned, hauled away, stomach slit,

392 pounds of justice.

Across the state man-made airboats hum along lakes and rivers,

far above the creatures taking their victims

to the bottom, rolling until they drown.

Someday I’ll take Alligator Alley its whole length—

drive where I can buy a gator skull,

taste Cajun gator in a can.

I know we’ll go on swimming in the green river

(like Lethe), never noticing

that in the garden something’s lost.