Just a Small Fish

It was just a small fish, refracting the gold of a sunbeam

until our shadows converged and it fled to the wrack in a finflick.

Our nets, turning weed, revealed nothing: no blenny, no bream—

It was just a small fish.

So we lay on the rock in the heat and watched the sea’s magic

unfold to the music of wind and the glittering ebbstream

that trickled the head of the pool.  Sand shivered a hermit

crab’s claw from its recycled shell, while a translucent team

of chameleon shrimps held a whiskery love-in and hoydenish

bivalves blew bubbles.  Beneath the flushed sea-tail, a gleam—

It was just a small fish.