Tripping in the Alligator Preserve

by Adriana Beltrano

Prehistoric cold-blooded things 

glide through water like big S’s. 

You’re realizing everything is a film.

Reptile hips sway. Algae moves on its own,

green dots on swamp-water’s surface

swirl and shimmer beyond you.

Single-cells bloom like mold,

deflower into gator ridge floating by.

Monet’s lily ponds. Van Gogh’s

dead ear. Floating, softly, like a rowboat.

You brought your friends here.

You’ve fucked them both.

You might as well have huffed paint.

They can’t stop flapping about 

the sun-bathing alligators,

any god they can put a pointed face to.

You hold the wooden boardwalk’s guardrails

while you’re coming up 

like it’s all you have. Falling.

This feels like an ending.

Something is going to shift,

and, soon, the interior will change,

but not now. Now, 

beggars can’t be choosers, as the boardwalk

cannot be hard gator back, as the gator 

cannot be soft larva, as your vision

allows everything under the sun 

to warp like a sheet of foil. Now,

the alligators’ scales are rippling

in the early-summer sun, sandhill cranes 

click their ancient songs, and your lovers

are asking if you’d like to go back to the car, 

go see the Buddhist sanctuary

and trip under a gazebo for a change.