The twenty-second day of May (one day late)

The Writers Retreat: Arnes, MB (part the second)

On the beach at Arnes
there are fish carcasses and a dalmation
that sniffs at me with the dry nose
of a diplomat
and the rock-polished beaks
of the seagulls and crows
and pelicans on the barely-there stones
of the sandbars
glint
as I wade out
to where it is so shallow
I can see the fins and following
curves of swarming fish
and the sinuous surprise of them is wide
and delicate

The carp come and go
in water only a few shades
lighter darker
than their scales
as what was shadow now shows
fin ripple
and muscle
through sun-shot water
as I stand ankle-deep
twenty paces out
from the rock-pickers after the perfect
piece of clear quartz
and the purple moth that has
settled
on the cocooned balls
the larval curves
of my shed socks