Every herring hangs by its own head

Every herring hangs by its own head&

"Every herring hangs by its own head"
—Thomas Carlyle

After they string you up,
you open your gills
like a blessing,
a gasp of unity
with all the others
trapped in the same net.

Wrapped in your sheen
with your fishmouth
and unshuttered eye,
you splash in waves of wind
to the rhythm of remembered water.

Parsing darkness with your finny smell,
you learn the shape of dry space
as the liquid life
shimmers down below.

But everything that cannot swim
begins to drown in sunlight.
Your journey shrinks
as you shrivel.

When evening nails down the day,
you hang cluttering the cool night,
splintering darkness and leaping
at the moon's white thumbnail.