in mud i see a starry night

Robert Carr

My grandnieces lower fluorescent
worms to indifferent bass,

expecting nature to comply
with young desire.

Languid as the end of summer,
bass suspend over sand-spun sunfish

nests, a swirl-bed of Van Gogh stars,
thick as sludge, fish snaking to deeper waters.

I’m drawn to saucers –
below, above, a wheeling expanse.

Like the fish, I’ve lost interest
in shiny things, sparkling

worms concealing death, lake
breath blowing through a child’s hair.

Urgent invitations, high-pitched squeals.
Please, please, can you take a nibble?

My grandniece cries because
the whoppers do not bite.

I tongue old scars inside my mouth,
savor the rust of hooks.

Robert Carr is the author of Amaranth, published in 2016 by Indolent Books and The Unbuttoned Eye, a 2019 collection from 3: A Taos Press. Among other publications his poetry appears in Lana Turner Journal, the Maine Review, the Massachusetts Review and Shenandoah. Selected by the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance, he is the recipient of a 2022 artist residency at Monson Arts.