North Woods River God

The god in the river is rank with mud and musk and rotting duckweed.
The broad plates of his antlers block out half the sky.
He rises from the water and topples trees with a casual swipe of his hand.
He scratches his back against the bridge and shakes its foundations.
He walks across the land and leaves hoofprints like lakes, fecund with milt.
He strides down to the shoreline, bellowing his pride
and there he lies down in the arms of the ocean.
At ebb, she swallows him. At flood, she fills his channel.
Whole estuarine ecologies dense as jungle and more massive than forests
spring from the churned salt muck of their coupling,
from the planet's tangled, sweating groins.

Collection available! Knocking from Inside