"I was fishing in the abandoned reservoir

back in Quinapoxet {Mass.},

where the snapping turtles cruised

and the bullheads swayed

in their bower of tree-stumps,

sleek as eels and pigeon fat.

One of them gashed my thumb

with a flick of his razor fin

when I yanked the barb

out of his gullet.

The sun hung its terrible coals

over Buteau's farm: I saw

the treetops seething.''

From "Quinapoxet,'' by Stanley Kunitz