Creekthroat

— We seen his mama she dry and scant

By hook or by bent

I guttle the rudimental stories.

I’m all in-scoop

suck and swallow by dint of birth. Of shape.

— Were you hallow-nursed on riversource

upon a time (or ‘the rocky breasts forever’) I was not.

I learned to lie in want

for succor-food; for forms; I lunged I gulped for what I got.

Nowadays to need

to come by what comes by here comes natural and needs no bait.

Just steep dead-still as a blacksnake

creek and wait.

[my chokesome weeds, my crook, my lack, my epiphytes, my cypress knees ... ]

This old appetite as chronic as tides —

on foot or by boat by night (please) come slake me with radicle stories.

Notes:

This is the first published version of the poem, as it appeared in Poetry magazine in 2017. The poem has since been significantly revised; the revised definitive version can be found in Atsuro Riley's collection Heard-Hoard (2021).

Source: Poetry (September 2017)