Excerpt
The Boat at Kelly’s Lake
It was wooden,
old white plywood,
registered seismographically
every weak breeze, every shift,
the lake peaks widening
as they circled, the underworld
set heaving, air
wriggling in brown explosions.
Waterplants waved like sound
pulled by a thick wind.
God was by the pier. Once
I reached my hand down
wrist-deep in it, gooey, slick,
brought up a cupped palm
several consistencies of mud
and a salamander
soft under pressure,
spotted yellow, moving
confused in the air, both of us
confused. It fell back
and once in the water
how it fell – clear,
slow, in its own heaven.