Hope Coulter
MORNING HAUL
Just as, every morning,
my grandfather checked his trotlines,
throwing out gar and snapping turtles,
pulling in bream and catfish
and sometimes a bass
green-wet turning white in the sun,
so I, in a shallower world,
check the e-mail that came in the night,
throwing out ugly ones
with viral attachments like teeth.
What a decline
from the mist
coming off
the pond, the slanting
sun, the knobby
knees of the cypress, the long
walk
back up the pier.
