Coelacanth Poem by Francis Santaquilani

Though I knew

These were your waters,

I never expected to drag you up.

Not after a million years and in

The million expeditions I'll make here.

I even had your fossils

In a box somewhere.


My nets are the best, I've been told.

The things I pull up they can't believe.

Strange things, long forgotten, ugly things

That would bite or claw their way

Through any other mesh.

Things that you'd expect to pull up in a net

In the middle of the night,

In black water,

Under a starless sky.


But you?

You're scarier and more primitive than

I ever imagined.

And now I can't throw you back.