In a river that still reeks of decay, in a time before the weir
divided fresh from salt
among mangroves that release a gas once thought
to have killed a young couple found on oyster shells, two men
came with rifles
to where the river turns at a place called Fox Hole
where-arm-thick eels can be caught on hooks booby-trapped
with chicken, and when
afternoon put its shutters down, they waited for
the water to change from benign to menacing, with a fin
cutting through
shadows as they fired, then walked to keep up with
the flow of blood from a head wound in what is now called
Bull shark, but
was then Freshwater Whaler, and roping its tail
they dragged it to the bank and subdued it with blows
from a hammer
and soon flies like a cross-hatching of stitches
had formed along its mouth as it swayed, tethered below
a long pole
they shouldered between them, one of whom
told me, over beers and an ashtray he filled to overspill
as we spoke
they had killed many sharks, but stopped the day
one was shot through the eye, which leaked pink fluid
as it went sideways
then sank from view, and here he paused
to brush a line of ash from the knotted brown wood
of his forearm
near a scar like an ingrown swirl of tan rubber
and light a smoke from one that had burned past the filter.
These days the river
is nothing but a catchment for shopping trolleys and animals
drowned in bags. Sharks are still with us in the deep end of our fears.
He lit a cigarette
sat back, and fixed me with a stare like closure.
