Chance Dibben is a writer, photographer, and performer living in Lawrence, KS. His writing has appeared, or is forthcoming, in Split Lip, Reality Beach, Horsethief, Squawkback, Kiosk, as well as others.



Also by Chance Dibben: Two Poems Good Cannon


Chance Dibben

Invasive Species

There are worse places to be than beaches of man-made lakes we don't often salute the civil engineers who gave us these counterfeits if we do, we might reconstruct the lie convince ourselves this is not a place to drown — Yet, the water is real; on foggy days it looks like a whole ocean that if I took a picture from the highway and slapped that picture on the cover of a book titled Pacific Interludes or some other bullshit you wouldn't think about the reservoir infested with zebra mussels and Asian carp or the body of a neighbor the cops scooped out yesterday

Here in Kansas, we really don't have many natural lakes — most of them are man-made. I was thinking about how beautiful Clinton Lake, outside of Lawrence, where I live, can be sometimes, how if you had just the right view, it would look like you were somewhere else, somewhere more bucolic, and naturally gorgeous. But the history of man is, in part, how we shape the landscape. How we create these replicas where they aren't supposed to be. How we damage ecosystems in intentional and unintentional ways. How the land remains dangerous, even when it has been bent toward our will.



Glass: A Journal of Poetry is published monthly by Glass Poetry Press.
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