Bullhead
"I was fishing in the abandoned reservoir
back in Quinapoxet {Mass.},
where the snapping turtles cruised
and the bullheads swayed
in their bower of tree-stumps,
sleek as eels and pigeon fat.
One of them gashed my thumb
with a flick of his razor fin
when I yanked the barb
out of his gullet.
The sun hung its terrible coals
over Buteau's farm: I saw
the treetops seething.''
From "Quinapoxet,'' by Stanley Kunitz
