Marsh shack leans in sleet and rain
and inside the pitch is so slant
that old joints bear and gain
groaning grain against grain
in a house that’s gone to sleep.
A scribble of smoke, a sharp guitar,
the old geezer inside is sly for poetry.
Shutters whistle through wintry mix.
a song, a stomp, a laugh, a beat.
Four rooms echo and stroke and clap,
watching a fire cup and pop, in mirth.
And pinned on top the marsh muck humps:
a great happy heron drinking
backroad winter for all its worth.

Stephen Scott Whitaker is a member of the National Book Critics Circle and managing editor for The Broadkill Review. His poetry, fiction, and essays have appeared in Oxford Poetry, The Scores, Crab Creek Review, Paper Nautilus, Panoply, Third Wednesday, and others. His novel of weird fiction, Mulch, is forthcoming from Montag Press. He lives on the Eastern Shore of Virginia with his family.