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The Infant in the Rushes

from Children of the Anxious City by Al Russell

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lyrics

Why
did the baby water moccasin float in
on a palm-sized river,
flick its tongue to sniff
our toast and bacon,
through the crack between
the foundation and door?
Will it poison us?
It broke the shell of its tiny egg
with one tooth, and now
it can't tell the difference
between floor and ceiling
(when all you see is up,
up's direction matters
only a little). Down the back stairs
the basement flooded again,
water the color of red clay
up to your waist
even after zoos of insects
bounced on the current
out the open hatch.
The water moccasin ate the insects.
He enjoyed them very much.

credits

from Children of the Anxious City, released January 14, 2019

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about

Al Russell North Carolina

Al Russell is a graduate of the MFA program at the University of New Hampshire. She is a poetry editor at Outlook Springs literary journal. She is also an ordained minister of the Church of the Subgenius. She lives in North Carolina.

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