RACHEL RICHARDSON

Louisiana’s Swamps

they take you in
swallow
                   hipbones       skin
melted         mercy
a fishing boat split by lightning
   
   they take you in    
drift    slip
across the scales of alligators
   slick                turtle back     new nubs
of cypress upthrust
for air          they take you in
   money and all
coiled net of algae                    spinning wake

        the clothes off your
   back        your sputtering
                           lungs

   inside
                           green            humming
 
                   inside

sky              thick silt churns

   inside are

inside
       the signatures
of all of the saints

         crops drowned
children                        men

            bending through  

   Contributor’s notes
   Children Born After the War

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