Pike

The pike floats through the obsidian waters, A beauty with sinister designs— A guardian with elongated jaws, Enslaving the still bed, her unyielding strength Forever concealed beneath dark pools, A moonlit silken presence, Which grates through corridors beneath, A gaze trapped between this goldfish and releasing fire, You are the hunter of nature, the dreamer of shadows, Cerulean coils steering through curves of branches— The tearing silence behind. Yet you leap through the stillness with a rip Stealing time. No stone rests against your teeth— You dine on the silence. Your cold eye imprints eternity.

Ah beautiful pike!

• Ted Hughes