The Catch
Something has come between us—
It will not sleep.
Every night it rises like a fish
Out of the deep.
It cries with a human voice,
It aches to be fed.
Every night we heave it weeping
Into our bed,
With its heavy head lolled back,
Its limbs hanging down,
Like a mer-creature fetched up
From the weeds of the drowned.
Damp in the tidal dark, it whimpers,
Tossing the cover,
Separating husband from wife,
Lover from lover.
It settles in the interstice,
It spreads out its arms,
While its cool underwater face
Sharpens and warms:
This is the third thing that makes
Father and mother,
The fierce love of our fashioning
That will have no brother.
Copyright Credit: A. E. Stallings, "The Catch" from (: Poetry magazine, )
Source: Poetry (March 2008)