Overwash

Here by the mouth of the river
the water has teeth, or a tongue

mellow in summer and swelled
with the tides. You can still

see your reflection in it, a wash-
bowl filling steady with the sound

of a current whose source is out of
reach. We wade with our pant hems

rolled and our skirts hitched high:
we can count the shoes floating by

like boats; refrigerators, microwaves,
children in plastic laundry baskets.

The sky is a crater the color of wet
ash. The sky is a mouth, all mouth.

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