The Marriage Of The Portuguese

Implies something beautiful.
A dark man clutching a tuna
Like it was his little girl.

It implies a marriage
At sea.
Life as long as the water;

Nothing breaks it.
And when the woman dies first,
As she invariably does,

The scarved body is tossed
Of the coast of Sao Jorge.
It is about this body

That he thinks
As he splits the tuna in two
And breathes in deeply.

It is about the long-gone meat of his woman,
About the sea who turned thief,
The sea who stuck fingers

Into the corpse
Plucked the child and laughs now
At this fisherman who finds

Only fish.