CREEKTHROAT

—We seen his mama she dry and scant

By hook or by bent

I guttle the rudimental stories.

I’m all in-scoop

suck and swallow by dint of birth. Of shape.

—Were you hallow-nursed on riversource

upon a time ( or ‘ the rocky breasts forever ’ ) I was not.

I learned to lie in want

for succor-food; for forms; I gaped I gulped for what I got.

Nowadays to need

to come by what comes by here comes natural and needs no bait.

Just steep dead-still as a blacksnake

creek and wait.

[ my chokesome weeds, my crook, my lack, my epiphytes, my cypress knees ... ]

This old appetite as chronic as tides—

on foot or by boat by night ( please ) come slake me with radicle stories.