The Poetry of Mark Daniel Milbocker 
Middling Creatures

Waterbugs on the swampy dark 
umbering the tannin of tea glass
waterholes on the silver backs of mossy
crocodiles up to their denim wiles 
along the striders' glide crisping
crickets and glade blade sundials
green with middle color sunfalls
too clever to angle stones against
the season of riverrising shadows
as sacred triangulations decompose
fading like jaguar clawmarks across
the starlit carpet of silent ripples
grandmother smiles from the reeds
coiling her barksong with cypress beads.
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