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Fish Whispers

At home just a half-hour ago
an old man, gait wide and arthritic,
scuttled precariously
across a Baghdad street.
The newscaster frowned,
as if he knew something
the old man and I did not.

Here,
feet planted solidly in park grass,
I watch a woman wearing a blue shirt
and camouflage hat loop
her bamboo pole toward the sky
then water. She strokes the pole
like a ritual of luck.
Her son, six or so, climbs the rail
and leans parallel to the pole
daring that bobber to move.

The boy, more sky
than water at this stage of life,
does not understand that
luck precludes desire
here. He cocks his head
as if listening to fish whispers
below. Strange conversation:
like adults in the kitchen
just before sleep
or the dance of a bobber
on gray murky water
or the silent sun-drenched descent of dust
in a bombed out building
on the other side of a Baghdad street.

Driving home a squirrel darts beneath my car
but in the mirror lives.

Bio: Robert Nordstrom is a poet, freelance writer and school bus driver living in Mukwonago, Wisconsin. He has published fiction and poetry in various literary publications, including Verse Wisconsin, Rosebud, Staccato Fiction, Miller’s Pond, Echoes, Peninsula Pulse, Pif Magazine, and Your Daily Poem. Poetry is forthcoming in Verse Wisconsin, 2013 Wisconsin Poets’ Calendar, and Main Street Rag.