Ramadan Artecevic and Manny Hernandez
awoke to the rattle of their thrice-thrown phone.
Self-displaced beyond their own belief,
they answered their mate, thought of their homes,
shivered at the wet, cold breeze.
They grabbed their breakfast on the run
and went to the waterfront in Galilee.
Their fishing boat was steel,
blue-eye blue, and streaked with rust.
The darkness eased. A low haze lay along
the waves; the waves, freed in depth,
relaxed their thrust far from the land.
Manny flicked away his cigarette butt.
It spun end for end in a sizzling line
to the water, a bolt from his hand,
as the sun rolled up into the eastern sky
and pierced around them the liquid blue.
Neither Manny nor Ramadan cared for the view
into water that clear and cold and deep.
They set their net south of Block Island,
winched it in, emptied it, set it again,
and in due course the shark weaved alongside,
the tip of its dorsal fin
flickering at the surface,
cutting fine lines like a waterspider,
showing gray-purple, corpuscular grit.
The big shadow took substance under it.
The eye of the shark is not, as they say,
cold and lifeless. It is not flat.
It is not expressive, either,
except of the singleminded instinct
to survive the next meal, the next minute.
Manny knew, and Ramadan knew
that look, that presentation of the eye,
ardent with no malignancy to dread,
burning in a way that does not shine.
They set their net, and watched the sky,
the shark in their hearts slowly turning.
Ramadan spat, and threw some bread,
and the shark swam by.
~~~~~~~~~~
Douglas Logan
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