Of Outrageous Fortune

​Look to the rope, coiled and stacked
by lobster traps.
And to the buoy tethered to each trap.
The lobsters, too.
But not
the wrack (unworried
in more wrack)—​
if heaved up with the lobster,
trapped, make me
as wrack, thrown off;
if thrown,
to float. Or tumble under.
To take in food.
If light, then light.
If suffering
the slings and arrows, say,
then slings.
Then arrows.

K. A. Hays is the author of Early Creatures, Native Gods (2012) and Dear Apocalypse (2009). Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Best American Poetry, Kenyon Review, Tin House, Beloit Poetry Journal, and many other venues. She teaches creative writing at Bucknell University, and lives in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania.