The Angler Fish Poem by David Levitas

If the male to the unbilical chord
Is tied, an angler fish inside a womb;
Caught between weakness and devouring strength,
The duty of manhood and pity's tomb;
Life within love's placenta, strewn at length
The Ocean bed, is but death's lovely ward.

Deep within her flesh, his soul ruminates
Swallowing the debris she has long cared,
Seeing with her eyes, sensing with the tips
Of feelers, her body's corpse long prepared,
Not knowing if it's he or she who dips
The line, to catch the fish, that time frustrates.