Eel Tail
Alice Oswald
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
