On those days
when I heard the voices of trout people
discussions at the meeting place of birds
I often stared at the Viking head in the stream

A green-haired stoic
jutting his whiskered jaw into the current
his mouth slightly ajar
he waited for a potato rock to crunch to pieces

For some reason
the lonesome head remained
without much of a body
cracking logs and canoes against his brow
grasped by swishing arms that foamed fiercely
never smiling to his only friend
the rhinoceros
whose horn spit the water
just a bit downstream.