I came here hoping to find water;
and in it, some prior-to-unknown truth,
some gospel in the stench of a headless fish
hidden beneath the weeds.
Instead, the fishermen in their boats bob on the waves
and the trilling blackbird with its red wing picks at the fish flies
already-dead, their dry bodies hollow on the concrete,
what remains of their cathedral wings
a refracted summer light.
That something so small could be holy
and, in consuming it, the papist bird made holy also,
a wholly sacred holy-making wherein men with nets
ducking their heads towards unseen fish
partake in an unspoken prayer—seeing this, I think
of how some of us are made to listen and some to speak.
The lucky get both: fish for words, scales for song,
fins in place of silent flight, however fleeting.
Above me, a lone gull soars.
Already the sun’s absence is an ache.
