Rainbow Trout

Like all those words leading up to
the picture of a big rainbow trout
in the Complet Angler by Izaak Walton

Or like the mountain loads of epistolary commendations and recommendations
leading up to a single rose in some

Other book which I forgot.

Like something which leads up, a
mad cadenza from the clavicembalo
not mere a bourgeois entanglement

In Christmas. but the adventure is discursive: it starts and stops. why
red and green I never got that

The girl with a Powerball hat crouches for
lost cards, I make my way to a parked car for your cigarettes. We are

Somehow always traveling and never
letting go. Even in sleep find one finds
he craves a blue picture. Hey pal,

Tone down the cuphemisms. We need
direction if we're gonna get to our
infinite destinations on time. How

To avoid relativistic word-soup, and
get to the real chowder. Ah, my friend
the news is blue,

We were supposed to be there last Christmas. Today
I saw a white furry caterpillar struggling
In the blue water I didn't move on him. No, not I. A heron
went ahead, I appreciated it and you
when you stood bewildered

Searching in the dark yard for the lost
dog or cat or something else
which I did not see and envied.

–Benjamin Shapere

Benjamin Shapere is a senior at Columbia. A collection of his poems Perfume Anthrax (Progress Print, 2026) is forthcoming.