In August the dogs dodge the fall
of black walnuts in the back yard,
the baseball-heavy pods landing
even at night like the home team rallying.
*
The three inch palmetto bug cockroach
drops from the hairy stalks of palmetto
trees on the heads of couples leaving the bar.
Light like a lawsuit under an unironed linen shirt.
In the still summer swamp a cypress knee’s
a mountain. Behind the patient transparent lid
of danger there is not a single smooth straight
line on two hundred million years of hide.
*
On the hill I dump more March snow
behind my truck into a pile impenetrable as Everest
without a Sherpa. The uneven humps
of buried cars stretch ahead: back of a giant alligator,
danger lies silent on the surface of the road.
Almost too slow for the eye, the lowcountry marsh
bends against the new season’s subtle color.
Above the snowline the years startle:
the flick of the starling’s iridescent wing.
