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The nightfishers are stealthy like
shadows. They flutter like black ribbons
through the lamplight's reflections.
Picasso gave them daytime colors at Antibes.
What a draughtsman he was! He could make
squiggles come alive. The light smears itself
Monet-like across the fisherman's faces,
that are innocent of such art. They fish
for fish in the darkness with a knowledge
they have acquired in the day, or do they have
a feeling for the velvety blackness
that the rest of us lack? In their veto
of dazzle and spangle, they glide
gondola-like past glittering
lamps shaking an electrical confetti
on fathoms of not fur or feathers
but of coruscating scales, adagios
of scales that balance the centuries
of domination by the land
as they take in the life-giving oxygen
through the grinning pump of their gills.
The nightfishers are friends with your shadows
since they themselves have learned to be shadows.
They respect the ancient give n take
between dark n light, sea n sky
so they can dart inbetween and make a living.
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