Smaller Ponds

lamp crackles to life as the
poet plucks his beard, the other, in
plaid shortsleeves, lights a cigarette,
smoking amongst the paperbacks

woman sits, silent

small fish in a
smaller pond, gutted for the
salt-barrel before winter, ragged
spine white, flesh dried on a rock
beneath the sun

gutted

pale provision salted away
for the cold months, head and tail
sloughed off with a blunt blade

the light goes out.
no more.