There’s got to be a way out.
I’ve been struggling in this swamp for months.
Thought to keep striving was the key.
But it seems like the key has rusted,
Not working any more.
It has been too long to be patient.
Nobody helped,
For the fear of being dragged in the situation.
I still didn’t back out,
Tried to stand firmly,
And search for a rope.
A rope of time,
That was supposed to lengthen,
To help me,
To make things better.
Looks like it has only become shorter.
Passersby say-
“You can’t escape it”,
I feel disheartened,
Belittled.
I think about giving it a last try,
In case this time I am able to hop out.
Oh boy! That was a great moment!
They were all flabbergasted!
With all my strength,
And my courage pulled together,
I came out!
Stood on the ground,
Victoriously,
Contrary to their remarks.
Then I realized,
There’s always a way out.

Those November days I ought to know so well;
How they might often pass like a quick breathe,
Amidst you at once, and soon leaving nothing left.

The puddles after storms would emerge standing swamps;
And the cloudy sky would cast a constant haze.
Around, silently, life would go on, for countless days.

My journal would saturate like that of one
A bard weeping who had cried upon
           Just a mild tune to cast a moment away.

Daddy takes me to the greenhouse,
behind our rotted trailer, deep in sovereign backwoods.
Marsh voices, thick like tupelo honey.

The coo of a loon, hiss of a cottonmouth, shiver of a snapping turtle.

The silver of swamp lilies lip the land in wild haze,
a veil of ochre moss tickles my nose like gauzey ginger ale
and soil clings to my ankles like a lonesome hound.

Daddy’s greenhouse is a shed, a haven.
A milieu of magic and fleur-de-cannabis
where pixies pull my curls and gnomes dance
under mushroom parasols.

My hands dip into a hollow of muddy earthworms.
I feel akin to the yellow blood of a butterfly
or pale jade of perplexing geckos.  

Daddy is a shaman.

He trims holy blooms that come from spirits
who sing in the wind like the whippoorwill at dusk.
Snipping sticky bushels, he pads tufts into his pipe,
carved in the shape of a sullen armadillo.

I watch him inhale.

                          His breath
                                               stiff
                            as a braid of mangroves.

                      He exhales a ligneous cough.

                              I don’t mind,
                                                   much.

Amongst the monardas
Horsetail, Susan's black eyes
You can almost feel it:
freedom, life.

It could just be the heat.