The fisher casts his lines
when morning is only
an attenuation
in the wet smoke
that wreathes the water
thick as tule fog.
 
On steppes above the sea
where shadows run,
and even shadows
fall thinner
than shadows once fell,
deserted cities are
baked in red clay.
 
Cities sway perceptibly
in the rush of centuries.
The fisher's catch lies
writhing at his feet:
sleek and monstrous,
goggle-eyed,
more atavistic than the
broken skulls at Olduvai.
 
Hunkered and shadowless
in his bank of fog,
the fisher tends his lines,
nurses a bruised hand,
from the crease of a
knuckle licks the patterning
blood: warm and saline,
on this lip of land,
above a shallow sea.

Appeared in Asimov's SF Magazine

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