Brave, to walk that length of dock with eyes shut
taking four steps to a board, nine boards of pier,
to the slant of ramp telling depth of tide,
flattened out at full moon,
when even the neap tide seemed bottomless,

curious, to watch my father haul up the new
eel trap and wave to a boy rowing past,
blackest eels there one summer
where before just silver minnow and scup
flat and harmless as saucers;

fearless, til just that moment we looked down
into the dark of green high tide
where spirals of light darken plankton swirls
waiting to see the top of the trap rise,
the salt water lagging off the rope onto
the thin tops of my father’s faded canvas shoes;
that trap tied to a steel cleat overnight
collecting mysteries, phosphorescence,
our brown heads bent as if in prayer:

electric eels I thought he’d said
or my brothers teased
and diving strong off the dock was never
the same again,
waiting as I was from then on for some thing
darting out from the sunless underneath
a slithering and a
shock.