There was a tuna fish…
silver-scaled, a small part of his shoal,
aligned with the blinking eye’s every
minute movement, iridescent kite tail
flashing and flirting with the surface.
Here is tension, safety in numbers,
one pixel in a reproduction of strength.
A scale shed quietly in warmer waters,
he hangs back to swim without comparing.
Cutting up towards mottled, gridded light
he is caught in a trawling net, now pushed
against strangers, now dragged out of sync,
moving as one mass. A lump in the throat
of the blinking, shifting Atlantic Ocean,
spat into a tin can, stacked with hundreds.
© Matthew Joseph Johnson, 2009
1 comment:
Hello Matthew, I discovered your poetry thought The Goldfish which makes it kind of funny that I happened to comment on this poem- it's all aquatic. I think I rather love this poem. The one about the wind also. There's something about your poetry that tugs at me.
Anyway, I just wanted pop by and say so because there's no point thinking something positive and not expressing it, right?
Post a Comment