Bamboo Thicket on the Chattahoochee (Issue 23)

Action By Moonlight (Issue 1)

Bamboo Thicket on the Chattahoochee (December 20, 2010. Issue 23.)

Of course it starts with a morning of fog and breakfast
on an old fishing boat that skip-traces over an obscure

surface—the coffee burnt and the biscuits flaking off
into the wake and wind we've left behind. Twenty-five

years ago before Arkansas and Katrina, Oklahoma or
extradition I held tight as the shrimper hauled about

Bayou Villere chasing the moon. There were the pricks
of mosquitoes like BB's against the cheek, there was

always something moving in the marsh-grass or under
the boat. It takes longer to remember the memory

than it does to live it. The speed of heavy, tied nets
dragging croaker and crab with shrimp into our boat.

But this long morning is an unbelievable mess—we came
to pretend to fish and drink beer until a copper sky chased

us into shade. Instead the motor stopped and nobody
can find the oars. The beer ran out an hour ago, and

her lighter decided to give up before we crumpled a can
and turned it into a smoking implement. So we float

on the river with a bag of weed and over-limit on trout.
Plenty of time to think about another glass of red wine

last night and sleeping instead of the slow river's push
south, or daydreams about shrimp-boats and payday.

And like that things change. We edge against the shore
in a muddy clearing surrounded by the wild regularity

of bamboo in Alabama. The bird tracks in the loam,
The duck-seed collected in a mathematics I should

know against the phallic cypress knees. And maybe
the bamboo waits for this moment. No, the next one.

Table of Contents

Action By Moonlight (March 5, 2009. Issue 1)

a new language 
is a kind of scar 
and heals after a while 
into a passable imitation
of what went before. 
   
"Mise Eire" —Eavan Boland

Too dark to see beyond 
her loose hair riding 
a dancing beach wind— 
the fire-bright coals 
create horns (or a halo) 
around strands of tallow 
and I have forgotten 
she's a brunette
      

We scramble
in the slow-cold sands— 
the very guts of Earth 
left here as silica 
oblivious to the chaos 
of our beach party.
      

And we go on, drunk 
like Li Po underneath 
a broad moon alone & not 
alone at the same time.
      

Someone gets sick near 
the icechest as others 
stretch on a towel near 
splashback from tides 
making rhythm against 
the shore, somebody 
just confessed loving 
a coworker and ended 
up driving fast away, 
stopping to die only 
in a ditch, the hood 
of the car tucked 
under a culvert, 
& rain followed 
the plow. 
      

That's the moment 
I can't stop thinking 
about—pushing forth
while the memory pulls 
back. No one escapes 
growing old, ill health 
and dying. Here or there 
with embers arcing off & 
no metaphor in the black 
tent of nighttime who 
would stomach sobriety 
or stop to hear sirens 
that were not poised 
topless 

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