ISSUE: Autumn 1962
Suddenly, from the rocky spring
A trout hung, trembling, in the air,
A jewel to the morning sun;
And then upon the mossy banks,
Rainy with rainbows, up he leaped
And tumbled wildly in the grass.
I ran to catch him where my hook
Pinned him behind a crusted rock
And ripped his mouth and gills apart.
I pulled his foaming stomach clean
And washed my fingers in the spring
And sat down and admired him.
I stripped him of his ivory bones,
Then held him, shining, to the fire
And tongued his body to my own.
And that was the supper that I had
While my imagination fed
Its silver hook upon the world.
