The lawyer casts an artificial worm
along the bank of a City Park lagoon
as the sun goes down upon another day
of casting among digests and reporters
for cases to support a point of law,
and bounces the bait among submerged cover
until the unmistakable tap transmits
through her bones the signal to set the hook

and before she can think it reflex sets hard
as lawyer and fish struggle in shock against
each other, the bass running with the line,
the lawyer lost for the moment in the trial
of instinct versus passion, reason, tech,
the triumph of one predator’s success.