The Catfish

From a traffic jam on St. Simons bridge

I watched a fisherman break down his rod,

take bait-bucket in hand, and throw

to the pavement a catfish too small to keep.

As he walked to his car at the end of the bridge,

the fish jumped like a crippled frog, stopped

and sucked hard, straining to gill air.

Mud gathered on the belly. Sun dried the scaleless back.

I took a beach towel from the back seat

and opened the car door, walked to the curb

where the catfish swimming on the sidewalk

lay like a document on evolution.

I picked it up in the towel

and watched the quiver of its pre-crawling,

felt the whiskers groping in the darkness of the alien light,

then threw it high above the concrete railing

back to the current of our breathable past.