By Robert Sullivan
In the warmth of night I put feet to my plan: waited
for my brothers to sleep. They’d spent the day
sharpening their hooks, repairing the great net,
filling gourds with fresh water. They’d bundled
taro wrapped in leaves sitting below the cross seats.
The bundles and the net would cover me,
especially if I said the chant to slow my movement
and my breathing. The moon became brighter
like a big fish eye as the chant hooked me.
I was holding my grandmother’s hook so tightly
a little cut welled red between my closed knuckles.
“Goodmorning, brothers,” I called and they cussed
and moaned until the next chant took us a further hundred
miles and then another until my chanting made them gasp
as we settled on a patch of ocean black with fish.
They forgave me, not that it matters. I took the bloody hook
and said my business to the ocean. It worked.
The fish rose and our descent was secured.
Source: Poetry (February 2018)
Poet Bio
More Poems about Activities
Stomp
I come home,
feet about to bleed
from angry stomping.
“Boy!” says Mom.
“Quit making all that racket.”
But what does she expect
when, day after day,
haters sling words at me
like jagged stones
designed to split my skin?
I retreat to my room,
collapse on the bed,
count, “One. Two....
Nowhere Else to Go
Turn off the lights.
Wear another layer.
(Sounds like a dad.)
(Sounds like a mom.)
You say hand-me-down.
I say retro.
Walk.
Bike.
Walk some more.
Recycle.
(See what I did there,
bike—recycle?)
Your name in Sharpie
on a good water bottle.
Backpack. New habits.
No thanks, don’t need a bag.
What else.
Oh yeah.
Tell ten friends
who...
More Poems about Nature
Another Antipastoral
I want to put down what the mountain has awakened.
My mouthful of grass.
My curious tale. I want to stand still but find myself moved patch by patch.
There's a bleat in my throat. Words fail me here. Can you understand? I...
Whenever you see a tree
Think
how many long years
this tree waited as a seed
for an animal or bird or wind or rain
to maybe carry it to maybe the right spot
where again it waited months for seasons to change
until time and temperature were fine enough to...
More Poems about Relationships
Grain Memory
A wishbone branch falls
from my Grandma Thelma’s oak
for me.
What do you know about magic? e1 asks.
E bends e old body down, turns
the wishbone branch into
a cross, places it around my neck.
I am strapped at the Black River’s right shoulder,
remembering my...
Mi Casa
When I was a boy
I was either a child eating bugs
or a child being eaten by bugs, but
now that I am older am I a man
who devours the world or am I a man
being devoured by the world?
Someone once told...