mud swamps

creatures of the mud swamps,
dreaming of ships that never cross the bar—
only ships in bottles, no winds, no sails,
feet trapped in derelict rigging,
wedged in mud and water and grain,
too far to reach the distant ocean,
beaten by the heat of the red sun,
waiting for it to set on the blue horizon,
all that is left of a life lived
in the waterless sea of abandoned dreams.