Toward the tail he slides
his sharpened knife, sinking
in a pearly gloss of belly -- the heartbeat
of his vessel silent now, that split
then splayed the emerald scales of sea.

Tucked behind a stubbled chin
of forest, out of worried winds
he waits, to rise on solitude's tide
into the night, to net the silvery
dreams minnowing past --

as daylight's labor ebbs until
the dawn, where pink flesh sunsets
against the glint of blade.