Mouthbrooder

For two years I have been a mouthbrooder fish,
mute, tongue full of baby.
Now this mouth is almost mine again
I lick parched lips,
prepare to speak.
I practise glottal stops and fricatives;
I wonder what to say first.
From my tide pool, I envy the unstranded:
hermaphrodite sea-cucumbers needing no-one;
seahorses, whose babies burst from fathers
as easily as semen;
the ink screens of cephalopods.
But the blue sky covers us all
and tides turn.
I wait as the drought-bound crocodile waits,
slowing heartbeats to two a minute,
breaths to one an hour.
The first drop falls; he opens an eye.
The moon moves the sea and shellfish stop panting.
My mouth gathers itself,
lips grin, tongue tucks,
and I say it.

Due for publication in Extraction of Arrows, University of Queensland Press in September 2003.

© Kathryn Lomer