The Driest Place on Earth
I watched in horror as the man hung half a pig by a hook in the window. Nearby, the sea shone or something. Nearby, the wingspan of a hawk cast an elongated shadow. I listened with horror to the words I was missing. A wrongness was growing in the living moon. & nearby, the sea rolled endlessly. Nearby, the saw grass peered through the grit & preened. I've never been to Florida. Louisiana however is second skin of mind, a habit-habitat. & Texas on the way there, the red soil & black boars, the frankly haunted pines lone men in pickups fishing for nothing they intend to catch. & nearby, the sea froths over the edge. & nearby, the sea. Nearer & nearer the obliterating sea
Copyright © 2017 by Shanna Compton. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on November 8, 2017, by the Academy of American Poets.