An eye in a clutch of fish eggs
watches the underside of water bugs, the skim
of flycatchers feeding on the wing.

The halo above—the face of a girl
belly down on the bridge
watching the eye of the place she names
Water on Both Sides.

She watches and watches,
no thought to the divine
just relief from small-town boredom.

She’s lured into water and muck
to lie with the pickerel and horned pout;
knows the names of nothing, yet
conjures one for everything:

the creep of loosestrife,
the rub of praying mantis,

the hiss of the fisherman’s cast,
the strike of his hook
into the white of her blouse.

Published in PMS poemmemoirstory