Pike
It was the pike I was scared of, Levantine of the Lough
whose sinuous appearance from the depths, through panicked
scatterings of minnow seemed to be a journey through millennia,
from the weedy floor’s prehistory to here on the bright pier’s
edge.
He is brink and I am brink, I perch on the lip of the
splintered planks.
He breaks surface, barely, when I snatch back my toes. I do
not
wish my toes mistaken for sprinkled breadcrumbs, false
trails
laid midst skater-bugs. The pike would just as easily take
me by the ankle,
carry me below – he is
the full length of a full grown man’s leg so my scrawny self
would pose no problem.
I saw the pike once take one of his own, full gape,
he lurched up, held my gaze in triumph then made his cannibalistic
plunge.
It is the pike I am scared of out here on the brink.
I'd be scared too.
ReplyDeleteGreat poem.
ReplyDeleteOh pow strikes me in the heart. Terrific.
ReplyDeleteThank you all. Just noticed 'gape' seems to be a popular word for me at the minute....
ReplyDelete