It's Still Life

 
The Brugge Fish Market

The poor arrive
from evening mass,
fluid as water,
they pour into
the market.
It’s late doors,
after hours, orders

of the church, but
not ’til 8:00. After
the best is gone,
perfection is sold.
Atlantic. Baltic.
Whole and fillets.
Fish gone soft and

eyes gone milk
as the chipped ice
melts. Into pools.
Into puddles below
the tables, sequin
scales dilate and
shimmer like sunset.

And a ginger cat
refuses to be moved.

It’s National Poetry Writing Month, which explains the surge in activity. I’m following three different sites generating daily prompts. Writers’ Digest Poetic Asides, the National Poetry Writing Month website (NaPoWriMo) and my old friend, Walt, over at Gnomes. All of these pieces are drafts.