Muddy waters

 
There’s a pond a few miles away,
and we joke about
ways to die in it.

The bottom is so churned up
it has that primordial smell,
as if the ooze is about
to belch up the first lizard
to flip gasping and helpless on land.

If an alligator doesn’t get you,
the water moccasins will,
or the flesh-eating bacteria,
or the brain-eating amoeba,
or maybe you’ll just get stuck
in the layers of putrid muck
and sink slowly past your chin
until you feel the
last bubbles of air
flee your nostrils

I overthink a thousand
ways to die at the shore
when really I should just
walk around the pond.

As clear as you’ve been,
there’s ambiguity in the
text and textures

and muddy waters scare me.

But I’d baptize myself
in those same shallows,
sink hip deep
in the scum film,
and as danger closes in,
I’d purify myself in
muddy waters

to hold your face in my hands;

to lay your head
against my heaving chest.