WHAT I SAW IN KEY WEST

WHAT I SAW IN KEY WEST(L DOUGLAS ST OURS) WHAT I SAW IN KEY WEST

Fading in the western sky
what was left of the sun,
like an alka seltzer plop,
fizzled and slowly sunk
into the glistening tropical sea
languidly stretching in one big easterly yawn
as wide and far as the mystical and unseen Marquesas.

I laddered off the leeward side of the municipal pier
into water as warm as the air as the fishing line
tackle tapped the aqua rock bottom
which I could see as clearly as the city ordinance
the brown skin boys were violating.

But those Cuban urchins could give a rat's ass
over a stupid little law and its prohibition
of what was plainly too much fun,
firing a spear into a school of snappers
bunched together like silvery bananas
hung and wavering in the ghostly light.

They reeled their impaled bounty onto the deck
where the boys all excited examined their catch,
a sandwich sized fish pierced but pulsating,
slippery in the hands of the oldest boy.

He yanked it free and then hooked it to another line
then gradually lowered his throbbing prize into the steaming sea.

For a better view of what was to come
the boys laid flat on their bellies
faces over the edge like sardines lined in a tin.

The submerged prey
brushed the rusted barnacles
of a collapsed tidal wall,
hidden beneath the remains
cloistered like a monk
a coiled emerald jewel
the moray eel waited.

The frantic wiggling
of the doomed fish
lured the eel out of its lair.
It undulated in a serpentine belly dance,
through the dimming shafts of light
he looked like a slow motion jack in the box.

Transfixed I remained under water
where through the flickering shadows
seen darkly through a fogged up mask
I watched the eel strike
and straighten the hook
as it ripped, removed, crushed, and devoured
the hapless bait...an innocent fish.
The current relentlessly pulled me
in the direction of the mayhem
towards the hell pit of that eel.
I resisted and swam hard against the flow
all the while fearing
the moray might mistake
the stroking of my arms
for the wiggle of a wounded fish.

by L DOUGLAS ST OURS April 2010