Dan Barton

Daniel Barton
 
Overfall
 
The marsh before us turns foil-glass
and, where late sun spills
upon water, black etchings of spartina
comb surface; beneath wrinkled stillness
a landscape quivers. How much we have
allowed ourselves to
fragile.
                 Already
such fracturing: foam faultlines
where salt-heavy sea burrows
beneath freshwater. Current
slips dark beyond our knowing,
but we feel
it, testing water with our fingers, how
the world eddies
around us and is
left rippling. You forget,
swelling into me, that I would
have to recede; presence is
at times displace
-ment. Low tide
reveals red plastic
bags and rusting
crab traps choking jade grass
along channels once navigable
turned shallow
or gone. Wreckage is
itself accommodation: the marsh altered
to include twisted and orangebleeding
steel alongside oysters, both
capable of cutting
to bone.
 
 
 
Daniel Barton grew up getting lost in the woods and mountains of North Georgia. As well, he spent a great amount of time on Georgia’s coastline. Recently, however, he has made his way west and is currently working on his MFA at Texas State University.