There’s my Bayou shark, requiem, nimble

through swamp and misty fen. I’ve seen her twist,

 

turn and sashay away. A wolfish girdle

flitting through cypress bogs. When frost and mist

 

cake this lake, though, I can find no old souls;

just ice flows and shadows. I got conjure

 

and shine but as this wintertide gale rolls

through mud and bone I find my warm water

 

guide is blind. She cannot find me. Iced lakes.

Sightless seers. Gods fade in this pallid

 

polar light. Dwindling surf’s boom. What can

a shark haunting the Gulf know of frost’s ache?

 

Nothing good throbs under my closed eyelids

since words make a poet, gods a shaman.