A Poem by Roey Leonardi: ‘Buying Shrimp at Bennetts Point’

My father says to select a beer.Exterior, two males in yellow coatshose mud from a reef of oystersto be priced and bought by the bucketful.The proprietor’s a fellow named Tadpole.Lives up Mosquito Creekand raises labradors, with out whichthe basin’s fallen mallardswould vanish to the marshand the mouths of its gators,which put on feathers of their enamel.Write that down, says my father,who is aware of a lovely thingwhen it slithers over his path.I’ve seen him level a pistolat a coiled cottonmouth.We trip dwelling with a bag of shrimpand two Bud Heaviesin the valley between us.Do I do know the phrase spleenful, he asks.Like a canine within the water, he gathersa soft-plumed bounty to put at my toes.