ABALONE FISHING

 

ABOLONE FISHING

 

John walked out

            on ankle-high surf

babbling on the reef

            finding its way

through the sharp rocky surface

 

I followed behind

            nervous in my old tennis shoes

walking gingerly

            tyre lever in hand

hunting for abalone.

 

John knows how. He’d been

            around the world

working on merchant ships

            telling tales of the high seas

and the low dives in port cities.

 

I’d been in boarding school

            for much of his travels,

anchored to declining verbs

            and translating Caesar.

He told us about the tough whores

            of Marseilles while I was

taking a Burmese girl from

            a Catholic boarding school

for a hamburger and coffee.

 

“Here you go, here’s some,”

            as he bent to the reef

hacking at stones  as

            the sun glittered off

the Indian Ocean.

 

 

 

-        17/08/2022