Ascetics down the bayou on the left

Ascetics down the bayou on the left
in pirogues. The way the wide egret sounds
when it lands in the mud—I see the end
of things because of you, you tell me what

I am to be. My thin and frail body
wanders in a spectacle of light
revolving, vortices of energy
are unobjectified in a madness

of meaning. In the cypress knees a small
songbird pecks at the bugs, the buzz of one
moves by my right ear. Hungry, I'm amused

by how she will not say what she has known
for so long now! I'm laughing, I suppose,
because the river continues to flow.