Watchpots Never

08May08

Well armored crawfish
boiling alive
with ears of corn, potatoes

aches too much like news
to be celebratory.

Are these leaning towers of mud
that pock the backyard rivers of Houston
where suburban cray catch up
on far removed atrocities

and think
still, we are free?

Chimneys that as a boy
were snake markers,
could never get too close
or we might fall for
forever

now seem
like sensible places to hide.

I can’t save you,
écrevisse,
can’t keep you from the pots
any more than I can
my own from greater boils

where people taught not to be heroes
become granite walls,
where boys too rowdy for the SAT’s
float to the top,
turn red,

served steaming.

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