Memorial

Dave Smith

Today on the 17th fairway I stepped over 

 the gutted, dried out corpse, 

 not quite the length of my arm once, 

 now more papery shell than any 

 fish, and yet moccasin still. 

 The triangular head had been halved, 

 a six-iron maybe, swung without thought. 

 Twisting tongue gone into this grass 

 making for the pond maybe, 

 that was gone too, the way words go 

 when we open our mouth 

 and try to remember what we have done. 

 So little of it all really matters. 

 Sunlight poured down its free admiration, 

 a scale here and there gleamed 

 as if a nerve had been touched again, 

 so we stood off even as we bent our backs 

 to understand more. You know, don't 

 you, our brains were saying, they will bite 

 you even when they are dead? But 

 look how there was an eye, a beauty. 

 Braided and subtle was what covered 

 this rippling, this surge to go over 

 to the side it couldn't see, 

 turning as the planet does, slow, sure. 

 Instant by instant it must have 

 blinked, tasted, filled itself with knowing 

 it would have to kill some things 

 to get where the future would be better. 

 Sometimes it would lie in the grass, 

 rain falling with its voice of approval, 

 but always the thump and rumble. 

 Until the dark, and then endless sun 

 its body would hold like a scaled straw.