Cat's Cradle
All that summer you stalked me
with your tiger-flower eyes
yellow as saffron,
ochre-flecked with
an unknown pollen,
shining
blood-bright in
your weathered face,
and those few words you owned,
more rough than real.
Under the windy moon
light was as fickle and brief
as a glimpse of truth,
a falling star. Fish slid by
like lost ideas
dark as omens
beneath the emerald lake
that deepened the closer
I pushed towards shore,
their flat eyes swiveling back,
laughter;
they waited like me
for the hook
to pull them up.
We watched the sun
burn its last amber coal,
and gave back its mirage heat
to the night like the
pave-stones of Babylon,
all that jungle summer
when I closed my eyes to time.
May 2020
posted for dVerse Poets
"Noodling is fishing for catfish using one's bare hands, and is practiced primarily in the southern United States.
The noodler places their hand inside a discovered catfish hole in order
to catch the fish...the origin of the term is unknown." ~wikipedia
My compound words for the prompt were moonlight, starfish and sunburn. I also used an abundance of additional ones not carved to order, just for fun.
Images: Night, 1905 © Mikolojus Konstantinus Ciurlionis Public Domain
Tigridia pavonia 'Aurea" (Tiger flower) photographer unknown, via internet Fair Use
