Rays

In the lapping shallows by the pier at Inverloch
three broad shapes sweep and glimmer,
slicing through the shadowy muck,
waiting for morsels;

barbed tails flicking,
hooded eyes are black and
alert while
the soft, secret slits of mouths
skim the sand,
catching at the slowly sinking guttings,
the evening’s easy pickings:

fishermen lean—philosophical—on the railing,
jumpered and japara’d against the chill of seeping night and
the prospect of long hours
standing still,
of baiting up and filling the bucket
with the jump, the silver flash of fish;
one shines a torch
into the darkening heaves of salty water—

and, like creatures in a dream
the rays come again from
nowhere into
the wavering spill of greeny light,
passing near and over one another,
their black wing tips arced,
graceful and
quiet,
cleaving the water like a dancer’s hands—

© Rose Lucas