like a drover with an ashplant
herding them south.
I watched him from behind,
springy, formally suited,
a black stiletto trembling in its mark,
a quill flourishing itself,
a quickened, whitened head.
'How do you work?
Sometimes I just lie out
like ballast in the bottom of the boat
listening to the cuckoo.'
The gunwale's lifting ear –
trusting the gift,
risking gifts undertow –
is unmanned now
but one whole afternoon
it was deep in both our weights.
We sat awkward on the thwarts
taking turns to cast or row
until mackerel shoaled from under
like a conjured retinue
fawning upon our lures.
He had the sprezzatura,
more falconer than fisherman, I'd say,
unhooding a sceptic eye
to greet the mackerel's barred cold,
to pry whatever the cuckoo called.
As he stepped and stooped to the keyboard
he was our jacobite,
he was our young pretender
who marched along the deep
plumed in slow airs and grace notes.
O gannet smacking through scales!
Minnow of light.
Wader of assonance.
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