I had never known the small anemic souls, the phantoms of the slime-mud, that muck and ooze at the bottom of the river. Until I discovered the place where the ichthyorevenants come to feed. That singular spot where fins and fangs and pallid rough scales congregate. When the silent signal comes, they mass and begin to suck the river bottom in a frenzy of flashing pale tails. Their lidless eyes glow and keep watch for the first ray of sun to beam through the dark fluidity above them, the beam that sends them scattering and schooling back into the grey grotto where they shun any light, the place from which they come—nocturnally desiring, hungering, darkly needing.

fertile rivers
moan from alluvial beds—
I lie wild, alone

Bio: Pamelyn Casto