Crocodiles lay basking on the mud bank.

Ridged pebbled backs in gentle curve.

Tails twitched now and then,

making small waves and sandy swirls.

Hooded eyes unblinking but aware.

 

Each huge lizard seemed to be smiling;

long teeth overlapping at mouth edge.

Benign in rest, terrifying possibilities.

Frightening thoughts of seizure in strong jaws;

the dragging down to rot under logs!

 

Fierce predators, quick ancient monsters,

surviving in the few swamps left by

greedy, voracious men seeking victims

among their own kind, human cannibals

with unlimited appetite, never satisfied.

 

Along the shore a bird steps among the

resting reptiles, immune to their menace.

A snuffle and a monstrous jaw yawns.

The bird walks into the maw of death

to clean between the jagged rippers.

 

It walks deeper, pecking and probing.

I think of my Dental Hygienist.

Wondering if my supine posture

reminds her of a crocodile

basking on a humid mud bank.

 

 

David Garlick, Victoria, May, 1996