poetry by huckleberry shelf

I want to be a fisherman

A friend of mine
saw the ocean for the first time today
and turned to me and said
“I want to write a poem”
and I lay on the sand
and stared into my book
and was envious

Later, on the beach
I saw a fisherman
with a rod three times his height
pull out of the ocean 
a fish that was 
nearly the size of his arm
and I thought to myself 
“I want to be a fisherman”

I spent the whole afternoon
wishing desperately 
that I had thought
“I want to write a poem”

Huckleberry Shelf grew up in San Francisco and is now studying poetry at Columbia College in Chicago. He's previously had work published in the Racket Journal.