a reverse abecedarian
Zion sank into the Mississippi, swampland
yielding under two cities—one brick, one mythic—
x’d from my map like a scrap cut out.
Water flooded into barns, houses,
vacant churches, lifting chairs and hymnals
up stairways, filling every attic to the roof.
Tall as a ship mast, the temple
sunk last. Now catfish gloom the halls.
Reeds around the windows
quiver as a boat drifts overhead.
Particles swirl from the riverbed like memories
of belief. Underwater, I wander
Nauvoo in search of how it happened:
myth turned shipwreck, my faith disintegrating
like pages in a rusted printing press,
keepsakes dropped among the rocks.
Jade-green light floats down as if
in a grove of trees, leaves aglow with spring.
Heavenly, if it weren’t for all this mud. No
god-sent quake caused the fall, unlike in the first
fable, but somehow I take the blame:
Eve, again, and the fault of knowledge.
Darken the garden, let moss grow over the gates.
Close this sodden story the way night does,
burying the sun. Its burning circle sinks into
Atlantis like a brimstone—at last—extinguished.
Phillip Watts Brown received his MFA in poetry from Oregon State University. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in several journals, including Ninth Letter, The Common, Ruminate, Spillway, Tahoma Literary Review, Orange Blossom Review, Grist, Rust + Moth, and Longleaf Review. He and his husband live in northern Utah, where he works as a graphic designer. He also serves as a poetry editor for the journal Halfway Down the Stairs. Find more of his poetry at phillipwattsbrown.com.
