Fishermen cast wide nets for mackerel
and
trout, the wide-eyed captives
flipping
and smacking in the mesh,
silver
and gold coins reflecting
sun
scales, rainbow tarnished
and
plucked from the novenas and votives
at
the four a.m. fisherman’s mass.
Mumbled
words disappear in the flames.
Multiplied
wafers no longer offer the balm.
Let
there be fair weather and calm,
no
thunderheads or Satan spawn
to
tilt the sea or rock the sailor’s brain.
Let
market and monger be paid in full,
the
gods appeased, the papal bull
from
Peter’s boat absolving the sky of rain.
Let
drachmas in the fish’s mouth
pay
the temple tax and bribe old Triton
to
blow his conch and the anchor weigh.
Are we even now? Am I free to go?
It
is time to cast off with spinnaker spin.
The
mariners are shrived, the widows grieved
because
husbands are lost in the Galilee.
Let
us be done with canonized feet
that
walk upon the rumpled sheet.
It’s
over, gone, and done, this hope
for
cloud and coin and copper tin.
The
wide-eyed fish and flock are the ones
who
are always nailed with the Savior’s sin.
~William Hammett
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