"Anger is a fishing trawler" by Seán Carlson from ELSEWHERE

Anger is a fishing trawler

Three pints in, pleasantries
spill an apology:
Sorry if I offend—
but still we think of boats,
as if hulls carved of tree
alone, adrift, at sea.
Long sunken are the hook
barbs fast in mouths of hake
and writhing wrasse thrown back,
some pull through punctured jaws
means of keeping one alive,
the dying weight in scales.
With gull-flap and dolphin dance
we cut scenes of angler's line
through currents and breaking waves,
discuss not rig or warship,
or the wrench of winch-caught arms,
whose jurisdiction's regard.
Landlocked, spare the river,
against our strength of stout
you shout, damn the trawlers
and their hauls, all taking
without leaving, a wake,
an emptiness unmoored.

Copyright © 2025 Seán Carlson All rights reserved
from Elsewhere: A Journal of Place
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission

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