Old Fish
       

This is what she knows:
whether water is sweet or salt or poison,
that shadows and ripples signify death,
that nets are invisible in water.

In times of drought I've found her
half dead, having scooped out a womb
of damp earth with her armless body.
She covers herself with wet sand,

and still lives, her skin
having secreted something
to keep her alive until the next rain.

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Copyright © 2018 Sheryl St. Germain All rights reserved
from The Small Door of Your Death
Autumn House Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission