—After Günter Grasse


What was he hauling up from the cold river,
that grizzled fisherman going at it
hand over hand at the end of the dock,

the coarse gray rope coiled behind him
and the other, darker end wetting
his chapped hands and frayed pants?

He fought against the weight of it—
a mighty fish, we starving children
wished, but couldn’t understand

what we saw when it broke
the surface, swinging up and tumbling
onto the dock. He dropped the rope

and hurried to scoop them up,
throw them in his dented gray bucket
before they slithered off—

those black eels wriggling out
where the jaw had been, the eyes,
in the rotting horse head he used for bait.