Pantoum

            after Zukofsky’s Catullus

Headed to the opaque silvas crest
of the local deity, we
drove the Chevy down to Duck,
gears enmeshed. Out of sync

of the local. “Deity,” we
asked, “what have we not known?”
Gears enmeshed, out of sync.
The blue-eyed fishmonger

asked, “What have we not known,
carrying memory in slack songs?”
The blue-eyed fishmonger
liked the grandstanding,

carrying memory in slack. Songs
you sang, “How like the city!” You
liked the grand. Standing
among blue sand and panic grass,

you sang how, like the city, you
came to me with your feet uncovered,
among blue sand and panic. Grass,
crossing dogprints,

came to me with your feet. Uncovered,
you sang, “O be, sway with the Lady!”
Crossing dogprints,
certain horn and reedmen. Playing along,

you sang. O be! Sway! With the Lady,
headed to the opaque. Silvas crest,
certain horn and reedmen playing along,
drove the Chevy down to Duck.


Garin Cychol | Mudlark No. 23
Contents | 3 Southern Novelists