Pike

John Bruce

I take it he doesn't think at all,
But muscles his slippery fight, an engine
Green deep, powering his belly flash
In his water mother, his horizonless well;
The hooked gill the fault in the world
Of his will, his preying paradise.
Near enough to net I have him,
And the murk of his body is my fear
Of our meeting somehow equally.
He pauses on the strain of my line;
I have him netted, sluicing the air,
How pure and brave my wet thrasher,my enemy.



Poems selected and prepared by Hugh MacCallum and Ian Lancashire.

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John Bruce's works copyright © to the author.