No quick flashes, the minnows’
field of darts, only the clarified
form––a large fish, its cool shield
unhurried and slick as shadow,
sinking below the surface, away
from the waves’ stacked wheels
tripping over themselves as they
topple and foam to the shore––
down to where plankton settles
like snow, where the pale creatures
scull and sift into a wide-mouthed
murky darkness––and here, below
the blood’s agitation, to resume
again, to suppose translucence.
(CAIRN: The St. Andrews Review 46, 2011)