Poetry Corner | To Muck And Muck And Muck

What thoughts and images does this poem evoke for you?

To Muck and Muck and Muck

Here I am yet again, seekingsomething more, somethingelse in another country.Transformation, aren’t youa fist-sized bird? All clawsand low-yield clutches. You arealso this stew of the overusedGanges, where we ride in a boat,watch bodies burn on shore.Last to go is the rib cage.Sometimes, that even refusesthe flame. No matter. Beliefdictates that everyone crematedon this sacred shore goesto heaven, whatever the sin.No wonder air is so thick.Dusk now, and floating cupsof candles in bamboo cradlesoutrun our boat, bobble downthis holy river science deemsseptic: long emptied of oxygen,toxic to touch. A mother dipsher hand into the waste. Drink, my love. Drink, she demandsof her child, limp on her lap. Charlotte Pence’s first full-length poetry collection, Spike, will be released by Black Lawrence Press in 2014. A professor of English and creative writing at Eastern Illinois University, she is also the author of two award-winning poetry chapbooks and the editor of The Poetics of American Song Lyrics (University Press of Mississippi, 2012).

Photo Credit: Bird In Flight by Andy Doyle is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.