To all the eels I ever killed. For all those cries of “vermin,” “vile,” and “slime snake.” My deepest, most sincere apologies. If I had known what you went through ... drifting aimlessly from the Sargasso Sea as a transparent ribbon. Then, like duckling to swan, emerging as a tiny eel of molten glass, targeted by every Spanish child and chef. Escaping northwards into cockneyed estuaries, your siblings trapped and stripped, smoked and jellied. And ever onward, the belly turning yellow, into ditches, streams, and old canals ... where I would fish in what was once my own escape.

oily sheen
a sudden swirl
in the smoke

Oh, could you not leave that worm for someone else? Why did you swallow it so deep—there was no hope. No way to miss the kindest cut, the contemptuous toss into dirt, left to writher and slither headless ’til the light went out. But was that a better end? Better than the Brantevik Eel, that lived a hundred and fifty years in a Swedish well, stunted and partially blind? Better than the years of journey home, to maybe mate before sinking into the abyssal depths? No, not better. For now I know. Of this need. This urge. After a long life lived. To feel the bliss and ecstasy. Of weightlessness. Of falling. Falling. Falling.

thrice bitten ...
but this time forgiven
the alimony

Bio: Lew Watts