Game Fishing

The balustrade of women across the canal
backlit Byzantine like behind glass

not at all mannequin but twitching distracted
from the already closed deal. The pristine

professionals contact antiquity with urge
twitch and practiced convulsion. A glint

of silver tarpin snapping the line recede
into her ultramarine eyes when the filament

stutters and the door closes. The spoil of hooks
a sea carpet of scars across the mouth’s roof.

Our salary of damaged wills exchanged, our labor
transformed into potential energy, the dollar, weakened

dreams give way to waking, the mis-set alarm radio
announcing the forecast of sprinkler systems.