Ii (The Trout)

Life is simpler without it. Look,
last week a trout I had caught
flipped itself off the hook
half a second too late
and thrashed in the shallows ... A thing
of living silver inlaid
at odd points with turquoise
and rose and topaz, little florets
on the flanks, under a mottled
olivine cape like light
among leaves, and as lovely
(and His own Logo once)
as anything God ever made —
and as desperate ... With wet hands,
I eased it back into the brook.

I still wish I knew
which of the two's worse,
when they both seem wrong —
to kill, that is, and be killed
or not quite to belong
in the universe.