Below Me

Way down below flows this river

Full of fish and headless bodies,

Sinking cars and drowning cats;

Stenchy flowers are blooming in this muck.

Lazy overweight lizards on nasty Lilly pads,

Hungry gators looking fervently for flesh and bones,

all of them unified and floating down the stream,

Their tongues  and sharp teeth after

Swarming flies all around them.

I sit here on this hill,

Dreaming in the daytime,

Sniffing the scent of the dead

Floaters rising and sinking

To this music of the crickets

And toads in the river below me.

I seem to not see the sky

Not anymore.

I linger here watching the flow

Down below me.

My brain knows the sky is blue

Or perhaps black,

And figures why look up,

When you have all this darkness  below me?

A Hernandez 7 23 2025