The Orinoco Eel

Gymnotus
from your arching back
springs a tactile & invisible scatter
spreading phosphene webs
shattering & striking coals of dreaming with silver

Have you touched the chimney
Brought your eyes to fill with smoke?

Spike your head above
winding Orinoco
oxygen to nourish your charge
sachs to spit
unheard
Sensing spines that drive & surround
you are kept & bolt to & fro
while a watch cannot keep up
with its ticks & its refrains

& none can explain.






Short poem from a 2005 Catalogue, by, Amy M Denes.

The Orinoco Eel.