Consequence - Steve Trenam

[Lawrence Robinson]

Consequence

The only true likeness of myself?
Mirrors don’t always tell the truth.

What I remember is a Noyo stream
rippling into a pond, and a boy
feeling a sudden strike on a spinning
lure, his pole bending as he reels the fish
in. An immediate, ecstatic thrill.

As it lands on the bank, he is struck
by its beauty—a rainbow without rain.
But the trout refuses to drown in the
suffocating air. The boy sticks a knife
between the rainbow’s eyes to put 
an end to its flapping.

Before cooking the fish over a campfire,
the boy slices its belly open to remove
the entrails and scrape the bloody vessel 
off its spine. It is then he discovers her
egg sack is full. The ecstatic moment 
turns to something unforeseen. 
Consequence.

I am constantly leaping from a cliff,
not knowing how deep the water is below.
Catching a fish is exhilarating. 
Killing a fish is transformative.
I could almost hear her scream.

In the book I am reading, muscular
pages are flexing with words.
It is raining poetry and my Ragamuffin cat,
his long fur sodden with metaphor,
huddles by the back door,

	- Steve Trenam
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