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 Swampscape with Oil Platform The cottonmouth slides out Along the rot, fallen limb on a fallen log, Its tongue a split lick that turns The air dark around it, trembling In the wake of the Evinrude. Pole and bait shrimp, straw hat, whiskey For a nip when nothing But mosquitoes bite—we run the outboard Down a sluggish basin by the mudbanks. They say that fish lie low, Secrets inside the shade, a cool stir Under the sunken trusses of this Oil platform abandoned in the swamp— Rusted struts, deck at a deep angle, Pump in a pitch of agony Where it once sucked up the oozing crude. We cast for cats and let our lines Slant into the shadows, the pale bobs Floating over lurk and flash. However rich the waters, like gravy Lapping at the boat, we didn’t come So much for what we might Haul up on hooks, as for anything The eyes could catch—wild swine around The writhing roots of cypress, Heron on their high spike heels, And green sierras of the gator’s back. A thin slope of filaments On the sleepy sheen Measures how far we’ve gone, the sun Pressing down on us  Until the day’s packed tight into This idle hour, as solid as solitude. No coarse cry breaks the air; no splashes Scar the smooth grain. However hard The anchor holds, we drift Into the long glaze and tilt of afternoon. ...

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