The Photograph

edge, cloud, horizon
swoop
of winged scavengers
buzzards over the sea of grass
far-lying hammock of trees
distant as the past
or the photograph you once took
of the tiny columned temple
classical, size of a thumbprint
in the corner

some views by nature
are panoramic
this watercourse
with Egyptian walking ibis in profile
and anhingas, wings stretched,
crucified like saints,
hung out to dry

you took a photograph of me
once, as well
pregnant, in a fedora hat
clinging to my then husband...
wind, gray sky, vulture tipped wing
shapes repeat themselves
and words must also, bromeliad,
eat the air
horizon line is everything here
it is the only thing

blue hammock, mahogany hammock
an inverse island against fire,
tropics sunk in limestone:
liana, vine, the strangling fig
where poisonwood
becomes a tree
that eats itself
(avoid it in the rain)
black speckled leaves and black sap
corrode
but also have some meaning in the scheme

drop tip
of leaf shape
channels rain,
you don’t want to be the same
want to cross
from one place to the next
as god must divide
water from dry land
again and again
what did you long to see
at long last on the bay
by the marina’s sway—
one more point of departure
open water
pelican sandbar
and in the magnified view—imagined Cuba or fabled
Indies...



For Mary Peck, photographer