DIANA COLE
Night, Plum Island, 1983
I drop my pail and fishing gear
drive a spike deep into sand
work a sea worm onto the barb.
The cod are running.
Dozens of poles lean out,
a fleet of lines pulled taut beyond the breakers.
Waves at the shoreline hush, hush.
The sea’s sudden quivering
sets my pole jigging
my spool spinning.
Fish lift into air
flail
fall back.
I reel them in
eager to dislodge the hook
rebait
cast back into the game.
There are no throwbacks
no chance of losing.
I bring in fish after fish
smash heads under my boot,
a brusque
but sparing death
over what it takes
to drown in air.
This is how beauty is,
without censure,
exposing the glassy shore,
silvered strands stabbing through dark
the long tremulo of the reel
a flash of scales
the wrestle, the thrash
the thud of fish
after fish into white buckets.
Black eyes sequined by a climbing moon.
Black Flies
A full flown army
advances in waves
the milky pulp of their paratroopers
thick on my windshield.
When I leave my car
hiking to Elephant Head
to watch a red streaked sky
they follow me, swarm
my face, hover behind my ear,
aim their tipped swords.
I strike back, a blow to my arm,
a slap to my neck, any bared
flesh a battleground.
Those who sacrifice their lives
to avenge my highway slaughter
rise again in welt and woe
while I can only scratch blood-
black ink across a credulous page
to vilify as I see fit.
Into the World
The osprey’s vigil
blocks out a piece of sky.
It had to start somewhere.
Why not at the top
of this pine, nearly dead
roots still holding?
And why not
where branches stop
reaching and come
to a kind of crux
that calls for something?
A few sticks
strong and plain,
the sense to lay them this way,
not that.
What's left is luxury,
needles, bark, moss,
to fill the gaps
soften the inside
sharpen the rim,
until something fragile
can come into the world.
A Pushcart Prize nominee Diana Cole’s poems have appeared in numerous journals including Blueline, Avocet, Off the Coast, The Christian Century, The Cider Press Review, Poetry East, Spillway, the Tar River Review, and upcoming in the Main Street Rag. She is a member of the Ocean State Poets whose mission is to encourage the reading, writing and sharing of poetry. Though OSP she offers a workshop in speaking poems, Poetry Aloud. In addition to writing, Diana is a stained glass and mosaic artist.