Louisiana Bayou
By Ilona Martonfi

I have given you my backwaters
dusty dirt roads, a log cabin

red mangroves, cypress forests
tidal salt marshes,

hunting and fishing
shrimp, blue crab, and oyster—

your offshore rig explosion
oil slick floating around booms

I have given you my Cajun music:
a child of the Bayou

by the Mississippi River,
you lament lost wetland bogs.

I have given you my black coral—

I have given you this lonely
sand dune coated in crude:

roseau canes die

bulrush, cattail
pelican rookery

smothering reeds and seagrass
green turtles, alligators.