The cop holds me up like a fish; <br />he feels the huge bones <br />surrounding my eyes, <br />and he runs a thumb under them, <br /> <br />lifting my eyelids <br />as if they were <br />envelopes filled with the night. <br />Now he turns <br /> <br />my head back and forth, gently, <br />until I'm so tame and still <br />I could be a tiny, plastic <br />skull left on the <br /> <br />dashboard of a junked car. <br />By now he's so sure of me <br />he chews gum, <br />and drops his flashlight to his side; <br /> <br />he could be cleaning a trout <br />while the pines rise into the darkness, <br />though tonight trout <br />are freezing into bits of stars <br /> <br /> <br />under the ice. When he lets me go <br />I feel numb. I feel like <br />a fish burned by his touch, and turn <br />and slip into the cold <br /> <br />night rippling with neons, <br />and the razor blades <br />of the poor, <br />and the torn mouths on posters. <br /> <br />Once, I thought even through this <br />I could go quietly as a star turning over and over <br />in the deep truce of its light. <br /> <br />Now, I must <br />go on repeating the last, filthy <br />words on the lips <br />of this shunken head <br /> <br />shining out of its death in the moon— <br />until trout surface <br />with their petrified, round eyes, <br />and the stars begin moving.<br /><br />Larry Levis<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/fish-20/
