Forgotten Ground Regained

Cormorant upon the Styx

Schools of minnows scrape in a whiplike blue cookie dough in a KitchenAid done up in Darke County.Comes surfacing, the cormorant, black,waits to hunt and dives in a wash.
And we wait and watch patient.
Too patient for air or a birdheart pulse.
A linger longer is what Lucas Roughly's childhood church named chairs and teaafter service. See the cormorant?Not yet have ye? It's a Ye EldLinger Longer. Lapse in the breath,death in the bone. Where is the birdwho was diving? Where is the featherthat flew on the waves? How long can waiting go, water crow?
You will think there's a turn, a truth like a sonnet.
The prestige of the trick is we tried foreverto watch it surface. See: no bird. No haunt of a bird. Neither here nor there nor...
I can only conclude the cormorant shadowdisappeared or drew its shadeinto its surest form: the wereshark.
Copyright © Lancelot Schaubert, 2024 First Published in Forgotten Ground Regained, New Series, Issue 5, Winter, 2025
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