Russell Jones
Barracuda
Face down in the cool seas of some heaven,
armoured in the faint moonlight on our skin,
our spines faced the flicker of hot stars. In
mid-drift we found barracuda. Seven
swords hovered like birds of prey in the shreds
of shadow, beneath rubble and long weeds.
Stumbling among the pack, we watched them feed
an ancient hunger. We watched. We shuddered
at the buoyant flesh, how the red clouds spread,
spelled and natured their ferocious intake.
They swam against us before we could shake
the paralysis they placed in our heads. Dread
was a comb of teeth, a dark eye, the shape
of their display, the seas of heaven, the dead.
Page(s) 28
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