|
I don’t know how I got there but there I was
stuck in a murky passage
and when I turned from the page no image held,
nothing adhered. The language I waded in—
a few lines about fishing
in an almost translucent light,
in the speckled shallows where the prize lunkers
lie and wait—made me wish for less, revealed
something about light, as if
it stood for so much—our bodies,
for instance, these john-boats
that burn with appetite. Against my will
I reeled the page in, tangled mesh of stops,
because something inside me signaled
like a smallmouth hooked
in the pencil reeds, beautiful as it
leaves the water and fouls the line
against death. Sometimes
when the line breaks I am relieved.
Sometimes I sweat or grow thirsty.
Sometimes the pressure of flesh
on flesh or the cushion of lips
against my lips reminds me that fineness
fails in the end, that, clannish, we take in
what speaks our tongue, what is like us,
and that the choosing of words
in this shallow of steel hooks, soft
bottoms, and sweet bait is vanity.
|
