From the Archive

Poetry in Mind: Dreaded Figures

A swamp is how my mother described it.
A sinking mud pit
of the cruellest design.
The lucky ones can sneak
around the edges,
or swing from the vines,
but most are left to be 
swallowed
whole.
Nothing is left behind,
 though most didn’t carry a lot,
 have many possessions.
 Our culture is prideful.
 We delude ourselves into
 thinking it’s by choice
 that we leave nothing behind when
 swallowed.
We walk with shallow feet,
leaving wet prints in our wake
that dissolve as easily as delicate tissue paper,
rolled back and forth in our hands.
They see the dirty, brown
bubbles and stinking wafts of breath,
but we see a swamp,
a natural thing - though unfair
it may be.
A swamp is how she described
that sinking feeling when you realise,
every day you drag yourself from that swamp.
All they see is a marsh monster,
whose skin has been swallowed whole.

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