Halibut’s Eye
sided-lop shift
optical drift
cross-skull nonplussing
fresh angle of crab
snatched curve of shrimp
squinter than simple switch
of gaze astraying
to full eye-dentity change
now wowing
at the right-above
the two-times cod
the double sculpin
as I-socket halts
and ossifies
then itch of scales on the I-less side
a twitch down the unpatterned lateral line
at the think of what eye might
be missing
eye still remember
the upright swim
the lower jaw of the trawl net
that terroring
though caudal fin flicks
with its northing frame of mind
the greatest migration begins
with the riddle of assymetry
ends with a sinistral sense
that gravel and sand
are also blind
glass
through you
we can see
mudsuck moontug
the bore’s gulp
and reach
thrust
of herons’ beaks
scrinch and hulch
of crustaceans
through you
we can see
for ribboned miles
and weeks
far back as
the stipple
of salt
and sargasso
we can see
your epney ebb
magnified
the managed tide
sluice gates pumps
bankside tumps
occupied
by crooked rods
and lines
dark estuarine
netscoop
through you
we can see
no could-have-been
no slip
upstream
no freshwater
fleshing
no riverself slither
from
elver
to
silver