In the Gloaming
The East River Seahorse is 18 feet long
And black as a chess piece
A knight – like a wyvern
When raising its head
From the glittering water my daughter
Her finger shot off
From the pier here mere
Meters from its palm-sized plates
Its plates, its exoskeleton,
She pointed it out
As a fisherman, hacking a fish face for bait,
Said: yeah, that’s Diotima.
The ornithomancer, he watches the birds,
Came up with that name. For some reason
It stuck – who knows, perhaps
Because of the diners –
But we don’t see him here anymore
There just aren’t that many birds about
An absence that can be used just as well
To divine the future