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Swamp Graveyard

By John Grey
Winter 2019 | Poetry

It’s alive here

and yet it seems so dead,

a graveyard of bald cypress,

bladderwort, sun-dew.

Fallen branches

are adorned with turtle sculptures,

lily pads, frog monuments,

and there, on the surface

of a brown, watery, mausoleum,

two gator eyes freeze solemn.

The air is thick and low

like a shroud,

once floating islands root-bound.

If it weren’t for the slithering cottonmouth,

there’d be no movement here at all.

Ironic that.

Signs of life

come down to the deadliest.

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in Soundings East, Dalhousie Review and Qwerty with work upcoming in West Trade Review, Willard and Maple and Connecticut River Review.


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