Sinnerman

Oh, sinnerman, where you gonna run to?
—traditional African American spiritual

First you see only shadows, sable bristles
   Stippling the silty, ribbed floor, then
     Glimpse the suspended apparitions.

Pencil-long, glassine so almost invisible,
   Needlefish swept by my shadow
     Quickly stitch tropical shallows.

How can creatures so sleek & barely real
   Inscribe pure presence through still,
     Colorless, estuarial pools?

My noon shadow folds absence into my body
   Like black rice paper origami,
     Then steals slowly outward at sunset,

A darkly famished silhouette
   Whose hunger nothing can fulfill.
     This sinnerman inhabits me.

No wonder the needlefish flee.

This article appears in February 2022.