The heron stands on stilts, I stand on dock, <br />to fish the wrinkled cove; he stalks the tide <br />and stabs up fingerlings. Waves slosh and slide <br />against a reef of rubber-braided rock <br />that lifts its rockweed skirts like wading girls. <br />A flatfish snaps his picket-teeth and scares <br />a shoal of minnows, caught unawares; <br />they boil this way and that in silver swirls. <br /> <br />I cast my line to snag his angry jaw. <br />The heron stares and sticks to his design; <br />minnows forget their momentary awe <br />at bottom-feeding fate. I won't resign <br />to flatfish death, and he will not withdraw <br />until he owns the cove. I sniff the brine.<br /><br />William F Dougherty<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/flat-fishing/
