JD State Park, 2010

A coney lolls under cooling shadow of aluminum bins,

sniffs the humid wind blown through treeless hillocks

ignoring the loop of shell roads shorn of saplings thin

as when sight adheres past scrub pines and simple forks

to a swampy place where gators wait in carnal silence

and feral pigs bristle brown under fronds in rustling rut.

If always a pond in the sand it's a masked green suspense

while the river still swirls with tawny fishes schooled but

in the temporal buoyance of trolling on mirrored peace

the glass is broken with sudden rolls to a grassy shore.

A man yells Quebecois into a pay phone at river's beach

but the concessions stand will tender hickory as before,

so rest tonight, eyes heavenly as the cypher face of Orion

creeps from east to west in his glacial chase of setting suns.