Bullheads

We take more than our share,

Several dozen from the star-

Flecked cove of a red maple

Pond, fins tapered like steeples,

Gill to gill in the bucket

And bilge, drawn from a thicket

Of drowned roots

Into the night’s cool garrotes.

Sorrowful brothers

Choking on strange ethers,

Striving, eager, bent

Toward the sky by want:

It was not to be, this breathing,

Though not for nothing.