Mangroves / Sea Cow’s Bay

black-winged birds frolic in the swampish pools.

The mangrove’s roots rise like reaching arms
from the lapping shallows, their propagules

dangling & whistling like hollow green chimes
over the creamy foam. The crowd of leaves

allows bars of the burnt evening’s light
to speckle bright lines of ivory

coral & shell, the argent scales
of schooling jacks under the pelicans.

Their spiny silvery dorsals mimic
small sails that billow & tuck & billow

their deaths an artful dance of wing & beak,
rust & gray, an eruption below depths.

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