Night Fishing

"I don't do that through the spine business.
Just one hook through the lip. He gently
drags on his cigar; his finger-pincers

steady, while their lines lie, strands of honey
lifted from the dark wine of the river.
"Yeah. An owl-cry hollows out a valley.

Splashes from the wine as if in answer.
He blows into a mesh of gnats, so stoking
the hotboxed, hooded vault of the umbrella.

~

Fifty feet along the bank, several metres in
the Riverman rises like a drawbridge
and strides, glycerine adders tumbling from him.

The nightfishermen wait in their vestibule,
as if caught in a gossip-fix with Orion
before the thrashing sermon,
the fight and play of the congregation,
the opening hymn of the bait runner whirring.

The Riverman, eel-limbed
mouthing like freshwater catfish,
lumbers towards them, a Dr. Who villain.

"Bought a new spinner,
only it's a floater. Have to put a ledger on it.
Perfect for the place near the mill where I fish,
where it's thick with weeds.

His algae of pubic tuft, his He-Man hair
but spinach-green. A condom dangles from his elbow.

Tomorrow, the Evening News
will carry their picture,
but they won't be holding a fucker of a fish.