Better disguised then the leaf insect,
A sort of subtler armadillo,
The lake turns with me as I walk,
Snuffles at my feet for what i might drop or kick up,
Sucks and slobbers the stones, snorts through its lips
Into broken glass, smacks its chops.
It has eaten several my size
Without developing a preference-
Prompt, with a splash, to whatever i offer.
It ruffles in its wallow, or lies sunning,
Digesting old, senseless bicycles
And a few shoes. The first down there
Do not know they have been swallowed,
Any more than the girl out there, who over the stern
of a rowboat
Tests its depth with her reflection
How the outlets fears it-dragging it out,
Black and yellow, a maniac eel,
Battering it to death with sticks and stones!