Fishing off the causeway
I reeled in a frogfish,
mottled and bizarre,
croaking as it struggled for air.
My Dad snapped a photo
while I held it at length away,
hooked by the mouth on a line
like a clapper without a bell.
More ugliness was down
there than I had supposed.
I thought of leaving it to die,
but I brought it again to the water.
In dreams, where images
close like on-coming traffic,
it reappears, as big as a head,
gulping at me with recognition.
It knows I followed its example:
fixing myself in place,
camouflaged so not to be found,
snatching what floated by.
Now, at last, I’ve been pulled up.
Awake in my sick bed,
I blink against the daylight,
feeling the hook inside.
Old lungs puffing like gills,
I beg to be thrown back
to boyhood’s clear waters.
No one shows me such mercy.