trout

Jumpy

Emma Neale

Upstairs a baby sleeps
we turn to other work

but find we have grown fish skin:
nerves flicker with every vibration

mistake the neighbour's power tool
for the waking cry

mistake a car's uphill grind
for the waking cry

mistake a bellbird's carillon
for the waking cry

mistake a distant factory's whistle
for the waking cry

mistake the cat's whine and yawl
for the waking cry

mistake a branch rocking in the wind
for the waking cry

mistake the drone of a trapped bee
for the waking cry:

and here, in our hands
as we pass it between us,
it seems newborn:
covered in soft lanugo fuzz,
legs in bumbly doggy-paddle
it tries to keep its head up
in deep blue air
too small, surely, to be left out alone
under the vast and open sky

can't you almost catch its voice,
thrown out in a high thin arc
like a silver rope flung
from a drenched and listing ship

ah no
it is the waking cry
we release the bee
its legs scramble
on the sill of the window
we all run
for sweet life