We came upon the delta, we, brothers,
split out from the blue wide river,
contrapuntal and lost among cypress,
moss, muck and brute-teeth jangles.

And though I never carried a tune,
I carry the tone of your faded fifths,
your deviled tri’s and slip-foot riffs,
an octave less than finding you gone.

But in these stale bite-fly airs,
in this green moss-dripped fiction,
better hoped than hung as fourths
for a firm resolution - I know

You perch upon a stone, not lay beneath it,
and pluck the roots of black mangrove.