Hawk

Peter sips dark coffee
at a sidewalk table in the market,
watches bargain hunters flock around

the produce stands and fish mongers,
pecking at green beans like dowitchers

sorting the mud, pulling at dead fish
like black crows. Down the beach
a peregrine perches on remains

of a rotted piling, a ten-foot
tide is sliding in fast,

only a few patches of mud
are left open between log booms,
peregrine watches them like a hawk.