atzucac!

Eel Tail

Alice Oswald

sometimes you see mudfish

those short lead lengths of eels

that hide at low tide

those roping and wagging,

preliminary, pre-world creatures, cousins of the moon,

who love blackness, aloofness,

always move under cover of the unmoon

and then as soon as you see them

gone

untranslatable hissed interruptions

unspeakable wide chapped lips

it’s the wind again

cursing the water and when it clears

you keep looking and looking for those

underlurkers, uncontrolled little eddies,

when you lever their rooves up

they lie limbless hairless

like the bends of some huge plumbing system

sucking and sucking the marshes and

sometimes its just a smirk of ripples

and then as soon as you see them

gone

untranslatable hissed interruptions

unspeakable wide chapped lips

it’s the wind again

bothering the reeds and when it clears

you keep looking and looking for those

backlashes waterwicks

you keep finding those sea-veins still

flowing, little cables of shadow, vanishing

dream-lines long roots of the penumbra

but they just drill down into gravel and

dwindle as quick as drips

and then as soon as you see them

gone

untranslatable hissed interruptions

unspeakable wide chapped lips

it’s the wind again

pushing on your ears and when it clears

sometimes you see that whip-thin

tail of a waning moon start

burrowing back into blackness

and then as soon as you see her

and then as soon as you say so

gone