—after the Sackett v. EPA decision, May 25, 2023
The river I knew was near
the sea. I saw
its tides, smelled its hint
of salt like busy skin.
Here the air stinks
when the wind shifts
and puts us in the drift
of the asphalt plant
or the long buildings
filled with penned pigs.
Drought fires far from here
sometimes make sunsets gaudy
gorgeous—all that flaming
out before dark almost soothes me.
One time you watched dirt
soaking up the rain
while I counted seventeen
earthworms wriggling up for air.
I want it all protected—
the moist, the wet, the soaked
and saturated—not just
the continuous surface connection
in plain sight. Everywhere
is evidence of what I do not see:
beads on a cold bottle, the damp
on my knees when I kneel
in the grass, what melts
upstream, what seeps
through rock and fills my glass.
Matthew Murrey is the author of Bulletproof (Jacar Press, 2019) and Little Joy (Cornerstone Press, January 2026). His recent poems are in ballast, Doubleback Review, Psaltery & Lyre, and elsewhere. He was a public school librarian for over twenty years, and lives in Urbana, Illinois with his partner. His website is at https://www.matthewmurrey.net/ and he can be found on Bluesky and Instagram under the handle @mytwords.
