Page 46 - WTP XII #3

Flying Fish
Above a depth of blue,
this elegance: fish
a-wing, humming Icarus in flight
from jaws of swordfish, marlin. It cannot know
above the surface
of sea-halls dark as wine (that other fine
means of fleeing this world)
a sailboat lurks, in wait
for accidental landings from what for fish is the knowable sea.
Nonetheless it leaps
to this beyond, a warming shell where, plankton flying too,
it briefly masters space
that we, too, brook, in burning all we incinerate
to build the human world, free in rocket, airplane, car,
of this surface tension:
earth’s gravity.
We spurn the bounds of earth; you, the bounds of sea.
Sing of me, then, in this late thrum you make, in escape from one threat to your life
into another:
in night black
a deck to smack
that will humble us both come day.
Moreira is a naturalist and writer. Her books include Water Street (Finishing Line Press, 2017), winner of the New England Poetry Club Jean Pedrick Chapbook Prize, and the children’s eco-novel The Monarchs of Winghaven (Walker Books US, 2024). She teaches at Smith College and has been a writer in residence at the Shoals Marine Laboratory in Maine and at Forbes Library in Northampton, MA..
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