Gathering Fish, El Tunco
A shirtless man throws a net, bright green,
into the murky shallows at the mangroves’ edge.
He wades in chest deep & hauls the lines, hand over hand-
several coin-bright fish, snagged.
On shore, the man plucks them flipping from the tangle,
tosses them into a plastic bucket.
From a distance I watch the wet blinks of silver,
their brief, furious writhing,
wonder:
what is it like, to drown in air?
Thick as tar pits & oil, or thin & harsh
like desert air, or the acrid grit of smoke, car fumes.
Or just the feel of reaching
in the dark for what is not there.
The fisherman, net picked clean, casts again.
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