An Egret's Regrets

So long in the leg, the neck, and the bill,
I, dribbler of frog ruins, stock-still
epicure of sluggish fish, fish who take
my ankles for cane shoots, idiot
fish, will gladly regurgitate ten boluses
of choicest offal if you can name
even one of my regrets.

I see you writing in your notebook. Sloppy.
First I had regrets, and now I know a notebook
when I see one. I hope you have a license
for this, Monsieur Jumelles.

There! again! Who but the most craven
obscurantist switches languages like that?
It was bad enough to be a talking egret,

but this, this—the way you tread, no
stealth at all, fish scattering to the
deep—this is how “the multiple seed,
packed tight with detail, soured,
is lost in the flux and the mind,
distracted, floats off in the same
scum.”

Enough.

This is my lake. It has a lot of small
animals in it. I am not going to eat them all,
and neither are you.