I feel the concrete crack
and break, a building bleeds
on lotion and cappuccino
handshakes. Soul-on-stilts
civilization lives over drained
egret land, flowing dryly away
to the sea on a bed of dead
woodpeckers. And who decided
to change the color of lips?
Those were wetlands.
Those were silver breaths.
Those were swimming days.
The water is still somewhere under
us, if only farther down, squeezed
between highways and sharp points
of drills. Dear powders and oil
and artificial dyes: They will return,
the marshes. They will return, silver
breaths. They will return, swimming
days. A brine to wash damaged soil.
Timothy B. Dodd is from Mink Shoals, WV. His poetry has appeared in The Roanoke Review, Stonecoast Review, Ellipsis, Broad River Review, and elsewhere. He is currently in the MFA program at the University of Texas El Paso.