"Trout" by Seamus Heaney

 

Hangs, a fat gun-barrel,

deep under arched bridges

or slips like butter down

the throat of the river.

 

From the depths smooth-skinned as plums

his muzzle gets bull’s eye;

picks off grass-seed and moths

that vanish, torpedoed.

 

Where water unravels

over gravel-beds he

is fired from the shallows

white belly sporting

 

flat; darts like a tracer-

bullet back between stones

and is never really burnt out.

A volley of cold blood

 

ramrodding the current.