Tennesse Valley Authority
The corpse boat split the lilies
in a black and heaving ribbon
in a final day on earth.
This lake ain't lake the way a god
shapes lakes with claws of ice.
A living man remembers when this hole
was not a place of many waters but
a city drowned in just a day.
Underneath the lilies can't you see
the roofs where finches threw a nest
for sowing panic grass and babies.
There was brides made in this place
where herons sweep at corners.
Mudcats breed here now their knowing whiskers
rooted. Home the only thing to root here
in these rooms we cannot save.
Copyright Credit: Isabel Duarte-Gray, "Tennessee Valley Authority" from Even Shorn. Copyright © 2021 by Isabel Duarte-Gray. Reprinted by permission of Sarabande Books, Inc..
Source: Even Shorn (Sarabande Books, Inc., 2021)