Chain Song by John Casteen

Chain Song

I crank back on him though he haul
my shoulder's socket loose, he strains
and drives until the bent rod's cold steel butt
wedged up in my teen crotch strikes
straight home and my knees numb.
This blue hooked deep on tube lures runs
dark fathoms under Plum Gut's high chop, piles
of froth and spume where currents parry;
I yank straight up the bone plate palate,
two-ought shortshank solid locked there,
his shard teeth shredding the surgical bait.
This bastard could pull stumps I heard some old sot
say once who lost his finger's end two joints
to a blue, and so what? For him, for them
the crabpicking women of Tangier sing, and
for our lithe prey. Prescient, Pyrrhic victory:
I hoist him up and out to heave his lights
as though bright gills might breathe, and he
deflates. Indignant catatonia seizes him all through;
I gut him clean and quick and you're proud, father.
For this radiance. For this one, hard, uncoiling blue.