Once a Fisherman

And he thinks of the days when the fish were real
struggling in the net, then fading
on the drying sand. He remembers the clean salt smell
and silver scales clinging to his hands.

He remembers taking them from a sack
one at a time, dried and stiff with salt. Handing them
to hungry people in that famine time.
That day he pulled in a net heavy with hearts.

He rubs his fingertips together, feeling
for the slime on fish bellies, the grit of desert sand
or the tautness of salt. There's nothing now
but calluses from pulling nets

and the memory of miracles.

--image from Magpie Tales
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