Incidental Catch
Incidental Catch
‘The catch of non-fish species’
At the town’s cusp, terraced homes blaze out.
The mill and the green jetty wane to abandoned garages.
Kept, like trophies, by the type of men who have love affairs
with themselves. I was met by an agricultural runoff -
where land intersects water, sky and rock.
Your image waded flat over the water that had slowed
to a few passive ripples. Your books snagged
under your paperback wrists, dead as granite.
In my single-handed grip, I cast my hook
over the shallow water’s shelf and reeled you in with the Trout.
I made sure that you’d see me. On my heels in mud
I shrank myself. Your tired old books still viced between your fingers.
I watched you squirm, thrashing the water to a paste.
And this is my lover I said to the briny tapestry of the sea,
as I bagged you for tea.
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