David Cazden

CALLING THE MINNOWS

Any man she could find
she brought to the fish pond.
She surprised them
by painting crosses on the tips of the clover,
fishing for minnows,
drawing them up on a slender line.

They always laughed at her boldness
until the silver hook stuck.
They would fight,
barbs tugging the gills,
scales swirled in the wound.
They tried to leap in the dark
belly of the pond.
But she was insistent, unhurried,
and whispered and breathed in the waves.

She knew a small, blind fish
swam inside every man,
knew there was the thought of a tree
in every tree,
and the idea of the minnow
would slowly emerge,
squirm up the thread
of her voice, the invisible line --

Once she went alone to the pond
and found the idea of herself
walking out of its flesh,
out of her dress as she moved --

She explored the weeds, pondside,
where plovers' high knees plowed the edge waves,
and water lapped lavender flowers --
She stretched over the banks,
feet in the mud and algae
blooms, watching hundreds of minnows
flip like coins in the sun,
tangling her hair,
calling the minnows
that swim below,
asking the world
to swallow her whole.

Previously Published in Poems Niederngasse

Location: The high desert of the Mexican border, near Bisbee, Arizona Email: ratts@iglou.com Publications: Poems Neiderngasse, Wind, Rattle, Conspire, Samsara, Stirring, etc. Literary Awards: Danzler Award From the University Of Kentucky for Undergraduate poetry, Included in the "Best Of Wind" Anthology

- March 2002 - Dear Anna Sonnets in a Land of Prose Calling The Minnows Oxford Blue Ficus Aurea Playing it Back what we will plant unto the breech some more Ars Poetica Elegy For My Mother Standing Under a Street Lamp on the Corner of Brice Court Escaping the terrible fish Sadie song for stephanie it will always be the season of famine somewhere Adieu - John Turner's Best Of - the disgruntled women's chorus sings accompaniment on the beta male blues How to Build an Impossible Staircase Trying to Raise the Dead How to Kiss The Grassfires of the Resistance Rishikesh