Jemma Borg
The lover of Amazonian catfish
The lover of Amazonian catfish
They say it's rational to turn inwards
to your obsession, to wake to it and love it,
but I tell you, when the storms come down
and the rain falls like stones onto the river,
I can't open my eyes to its sting.
My childless hip
starts up its ache along the beltline
where I hook my thumb. Then the waves come
up over the canoe as if to drown me
within reach of shore, and I have to think
of where to jump to should a caiman
land at my feet.
But it passes. And then, above the cataracts,
where the water eases and takes the rain
like a boiling mirror instead:
always a greater treasure of fish,
and then a greater one still in the tiny creeks
we call igarapés
and into that slow-moving catch
as bizarre as a netted dream, I sink
my heart's current, the lines of its wonder
tracing the body of my fish
from the promontory of its ancient head
to its long and breakable tail.
