Anvil

Beguiling, that even a landsman fears the tide,
caught up in the darting frenzied feed
in clouds as he waits for rain, each blue streak
a shark toothed with blind hunger.

To the landsman, shark is cobbled up, larger,
more mouth than body, hunter with emery
skin, stone eyes and tailed with knives:
beguiling, the terrors we make.

Beguiling, the churn and the whale humps
breached in the sky. Beguiling, the maelstrom,
downturned and green on the rise:
Even a landsman fears the sea.

Electric on his tongue, he leans
into the rushed wind breaking
over the plains, howling in the wire,
breaking over the gray hull of his barn,

Bow on to the anvil and cresting.

Image: Mila Young on Unsplash