A flash like silver cufflinks
ribbons off into river grass:
a fluid lick of nickel,
the sidle and slather of eel.
Eyes flat as dishpans
and night-sweat slick,
it flutters out of its den
in slow ouroboros,
a struggling lasso
of almost human skin.
No beauty is quite
like the fan and fluting of glass
it spawns in the reeds,
a trail of clear jelly streamers
riding the gulf stream
to the Sargasso Sea.
Its accent is Scots: elves,
corruption of eel-fair.
Sexless, according to Aristotle,
born of the slime of sea rocks
or the guts of wet soil.
Tonight I thought I saw
a silvering eel climb
out of a country stream
and snake its visible heart
through the soaked grass:
migrant of the seas,
line and vector stretching
in a single direction,
its head turned from me
like an omen,
unknowable, knowing.