I waited though wanting nothing,
then waited longer.

As if by that I might
become again
the carved and painted lure—

Its two iridescent eyes that stay always open,
its stippled gold sides, deep-orange back,
red threads attached at the gills.

I hummed with its three-pronged shine
of fish who are sweet and fat to the birds above them.

I hummed with its three injured notes to the fish below.

To all the blue-winged, handless distances
and all my blue-finned, handless lives,
I hummed
in borrowed Swedish and the iron-hiding slip of gleam—

The great strangeness still may come, even for you.