To Waste My Hands

by Aracelis Girmay

Three years ago, I stood on the dock near my father’s house
while the small shark suffocated & was killed.

He was like an angel culled up from the purple sea.
& the air smashed into him like an anvil

& his muscles sank desperately into the ribs. Terrible

terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible
to watch him that way. More terrible to waste my hands, just

standing.