Gamut Magazine
Issue #3

Dying Near Water

By: Janna Layton

The terns are like bats

over the lake this evening—

screeching, hovering, diving,

never colliding.

Three white pelicans swim silently

in their own sliver of slough,

like swans in a moat.

In the marsh, the snowy egret lingers

by the entrance to the maze of reeds.

Here, someone could disappear.

Janna Layton lives in Walnut Creek, California. Her writing has been published in various places, including The New Yorker’s Daily Shouts, Apex, Luna Station Quarterly, Cosmorama, and Seaside Gothic. She is on Threads as @sweetsillyeponine and BlueSky as @jannalayton.bsky.social.

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