The Baro

Ethiopia

It was enough to see him, Olsen our photographer,
         across the river waist deep
in sun-sheathed water. He stood leaning into the current
        for balance; a wake of chevrons,
darks on brightness, trailing. I thought he stood on ledge
        that ran submerged near shore.
He stared upstream with fingers boxed as if framing
        a shot. This gave me pause.
When I looked up two minutes later he had gone,
        no trace on the wide Baro.
Currents flashed like shattered windshields in sunlight. A braid
        of wavelets headed downstream;
we saw a chunk of weed trailing the prow of ripples.
        Impossible! He knew the rules;
no doubt he'd climbed ashore. Downstream we found a great one—
        the glasses showed our quarry,
a rosy shred, a flower at the jaw. McCutcheon
        stalked upstream, tracked back
and paused in range downwind of turreted eyes. First fire
        missed, then four shots more,
at which the beast crawled down and under, vanishing.