Savage Mother

Cooling off our summer singed skin in her embrace, sweat and sea
indistinguishable in the brown-blue waves, we splashed and sputtered.
Heat intense, it seared our soles, running barefoot ‘tween stilted houses,
painted yellow, weathered grey, driftwood mansions on the shore.

Dug toes deep in silky sultry black silt mud, seeking shells, finding oysters,
Mother of Pearl’s jagged edges sliced searching digits in the salty sludge,

Her briny perfume, rotting, brackish, sickly sweet, weighed down on the unsuspecting
Victims of her splendor, her siren song, sucked into her savagery we lived
Wild beasts in human form, fighting and wrestling in the heat of day,
Bamboo swords, still green, freshly cut, smarting on swollen sunburnt skin.