My Dolphin, you only guide me by surprise,
captive as Racine, the man of craft,
drawn through his maze of iron composition
by the incomparable wandering voice of Phedre.
When I was troubled in mind, you made for my body
caught in its hangman's-knot of sinking lines,
the glassy bowing and scraping of my will…
I have sat and listened to too many
words of the collaborating muse,
and plotted perhaps too freely with my life,
not avoiding Injury to others,
not avoiding injun' to myself-
to ask compassion . .. this book, half fiction,
an eelnet made by man for the eel fighting
my eyes have seen what my hand did.