In Elodea
Dave Motes
A hulking hover, holding,
heeling, eyes and still strong tail,
the pike pulls light to bars of tangle,
jumble, twist; too skeined and dark for finding
what might but hope not isn't there.
Not too still to stand out, gill flare softened,
sand belly, dream and greenly white-light bars
and burnish copper-amber-moss above;
surge and ripple, gill and fin, tiny tilt and turn of eye
is stroked away in lines of ripple-cloud-wagged shade.
Even empty water, clear and silent
to his old reptilian sense
still glows, all traced with killing vectors
lunges, cuts, and crunch of bones.