Olive dark, its deep-inked lines stone slates,

knit like a well-made roof, from feathered gills

down the carp’s length, to the hem of its tail.

A dragon’s muscled back rolls thick-skinned,

and is swallowed, hard, by the river’s mirrored top.

But sourdough on a hook will bring the fish in.

Odd how the colour dies when the scales are gone:

drab flesh as common as an old woman’s hue.

No cause for admiring when the cleaning is done.

And so, the weight is rolled in newsprint.

Not the fish I had seen in the dam’s shadow,

I keep fishing, and waiting for the line to move:

a thick quivering green in the shallows,

a pulse in this river where I have grown.