The Old Fishstation

Its sign has weathered away. There is nothing now

To tell the traveler what this place was

Or where it fitted in. The dike that it clings

The river it wades come at it with claws.

Only a native remembers when all the business

Here was catch: the smallcraft swarms that stormed

The hive, the robber-trucks that took the treasure

inland.

Pier-reach, shifting gangways crusted in brilliance,

Rungs that led both down and up with gleaming

Indifference-they are one with the water and wind.

Soon, too, the simplified shell will go

Floating and fouling the nets of the stream that it

dipped from,

A riddled trammel-house bobbing its way

Toward the long definition at sea.