{"id":4891,"date":"2011-12-01T00:05:50","date_gmt":"2011-12-01T05:05:50","guid":{"rendered":"\/nashvillereview\/?p=4891"},"modified":"2015-02-16T14:09:42","modified_gmt":"2015-02-16T20:09:42","slug":"to-a-predator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/archives\/4891","title":{"rendered":"To a Predator"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>You cut the water for me<br \/>\nbrutal with your snout<br \/>\nthat was the whole front side<br \/>\nof your head; your bearing-forward<br \/>\na bullet tuned to assault.<\/p>\n<p>You had gouges the size of star fish,<br \/>\nwhip-lash from giant squid,<br \/>\nand whip marks<br \/>\nfrom Portuguese Men o\u2019 War,<br \/>\nrough trade of dealing with mantas<br \/>\nand moray eels.<br \/>\nBeing savagely wounded was glory.<\/p>\n<p>You were efficient<br \/>\nat getting what you wanted;<br \/>\nbut so patient,<br \/>\nsensing young prey a mile off<br \/>\nas if tasting the electrical field<br \/>\nof living things.<\/p>\n<p>I thought I was your only one.<br \/>\nBut others clung to you<br \/>\nin the blue-darkness<br \/>\nof the water.<\/p>\n<p>Down there, there were no stars;<br \/>\nno phosphorescence.<br \/>\nThe nibble of your grooming<br \/>\nmade it seem you were the sun.<br \/>\nBut all it was, grey, mottled,<br \/>\nwas your skin, close up,<br \/>\nand you hidden within it,<br \/>\ngrinning.<\/p>\n<p>I discovered about your other remora<br \/>\nlater: the small ones flying near your mouth<br \/>\nthe others near your underside.<br \/>\nYou held us<br \/>\nin separate chambers<br \/>\nof water.<\/p>\n<p>Year later, I followed decisive girlfriends<br \/>\nat shoal work of parties.<br \/>\nI didn\u2019t swim for myself.<br \/>\n<em>Where did I learn that tendency?<\/em><br \/>\nI asked myself.<\/p>\n<h6><a href=\"\/nashvillereview\/archives\/4752\">David McLoghlin<\/a><\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You cut the water for me brutal with your snout that was the whole front side of your head; your bearing-forward a bullet tuned to assault. You had gouges the size of star fish, whip-lash from giant squid, and whip marks from Portuguese Men o\u2019 War, rough trade of dealing with mantas and moray eels. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[25],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Jypy-1gT","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4891"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4891"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4891\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10283,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4891\/revisions\/10283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}