he saw carp in the reeds
cats, whiskered bottom feeders, were there too,
deeper in the green waters

he wormed his hook, thanked
the good lord for the river, for tonight Christ's bread
would be fat fish, fast fried

thirty days and thirty nights,
he had eaten the sour beans, the gruel,
his stomach growled now like a lion

ready for the hot white flesh
but the fish were slow to bite--by noon he had but two carp;
neither longer than his hand

he decided God hadn't heard
his entreaties; he shouted out to the white sky
where he believed the lord lived

“let these fish find my line
fill my belly before I'm caught, drunk again
on the devil's broth in the town square”

but God didn't hear, for
three scrawny swimming sinners were all
he caught by a hungry sundown

leaving him eager to find
the old still, and barter with its master, for he was
more generous than the Almighty

who created all things that
swam in the rivers, who tempted him with bounty
but denied a red reaping