When They Sank Down and You Said Spotless

Two stubbornly obscure lines
Snaked in the waves together.

Some argued they were fishing.
Others said they held no lures.

Possibly, they were probing,
But sticks would have been better.

Translators couldn’t agree,
Even, that they were plural.

From a point of view below
Debate, they did look eerie,

Wriggling like long, narrow worms,
Blurred by the waves in the light.

But their nature mattered less
Than the meaning of each guess.