Today's poem is by Vanessa Couto Johnson

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At the botanic garden, a map
claims there is a swamp

and I am a cynic through yards
of paths until boardwalk

over black water. Green lacing
fractions of surface. You spot

a pie-sized portion of honeycomb
floating. Amber grids waiting to feed

unseen animals. This water thick with mirroring
such that I imagine our time doubled for our duplicates,

whom I do not lean to see. This dark fluid an event horizon.

We cannot stay to learn what lurks. We try a perimeter
path, completing our orbit back toward parked

cars and what looks to be wedding guests

we keep our distance from, nearing signs
naming roots within the ground.

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Copyright © 2023 Vanessa Couto Johnson All rights reserved
from pH of Au
Parlor Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission