Fry Day
Skipping School
They wondered why I drank
the idiots
in their shrinking world
that always made sense
to them
but not to me
even as a small fry I'd slip out of the stream
and watch them swim along
always in the same direction
not even thinking about the sonar
of the pink gods with feet
in their mechanized floating machines
with their engines and their wheels
their knives and crosses
I'd think to myself, we're sitting ducks
fish in a barrel
just waiting for the pink gods to pick us off
one by one
or in one apocalyptic haul
to sweep us all away
with the sharks and the barnacles
The only gods I ever respected were the pirates
with their honest code
of personal interest and dishonesty
no sermon or coat of arms
or ladies with golden haloes
just black sails
get what you can
reap havoc and sow terror
like the razor-toothed shark
Yes, I remember the pirates with their amber rum
barrels of the stuff
dark, light, sweet, sweeter
I was happy to drink with them
the ones that drowned and joined us in the coral reefs
we drank their golden rum, añejo, Señor Ron Ambar
we drank until there were no rules
about how fish were supposed to behave
about how much we could turn
this way and that
about how much we could drink
and with whom
and about how we were supposed to sit
even though we couldn't sit
No backbone, sluggards! yelled out the headmaster
in the water-boarding school
where all my cousins sat
primly
taking the bait
which I saw from the pirate cove mark twain beneath
until the day I saw the end
of their days
The Unholy Haul
It was mid-morning
and the sun tilted down through the layers of waves
till it cast a multiple light on the coral shelf
where I was still drinking
after a heavy night with the betta fish
with their fancy fins and angry jaws
I was now entirely spent
but still drinking rum
long past ignoring the school bell
(hooky, they called it)
I was looking at the refracting light
green, emerald, topaz
as it angled onto the rim of the shelf
as I sat there exhausted against the coral wall
looking out at the light and the current
when I felt it
the belt of angles shifted in one large movement
that you could only see if you were apart from it
inside Plato's cove, hungover
with your back against the wall
The water shook
but they didn't notice anything
they were in school
with their backs straight
reciting something about love
heterosexual love between fishes
and family values
when they all got swept up in a big net
The memory of it snaps something inside me
tears me apart
makes me want to follow them
upward toward Heaven
the bright blue sky
into which the bubbles break
a martini surface of vodka
melon liqueur and blue curaçao
while beneath me swells a dark current of rum
and ahead of me lie the coral-white altars of cocaine
and I let the heavens be
I've given up twisting and shouting
I just let myself go
it's what they call drowning my sorrows —
but what could that possibly mean
when you're a fish?
The Drowning Fish
Drowning
falling into the forbidden deep
the dirt highway of the crab
the way of the octopi
the pulsing jellyfish
here in the deep I let go of the dreams
that were supposed to lift me up
the things I was supposed to see
the impossible things
The Way of the Sky
the communal capitalized Dream
of how we'd all swim together
for the rest of our after lives
ghost fishes
swimming in the same school
fish-bone skeletons
circling in the sky
Fins & Wings
All I remember now is the everlasting disappointment
on the faces of my mother and father
with all their talk of The Fishermen and the Loaves
The Virgin and the Dove
The Way of the Fishes and Sky
The fins that were supposed to turn into wings
angel wings
never made any sense to me
because all I ever had were fins
and because of the fisherman
with their pointy hats and dusty sandals
who only cared about the souls
of the humans
they rescued
they said nothing about the fish themselves
unlike good old Laozi
who wrote that Fishes should not be taken from the deep
or Zhuangzi, who told his companion, You are not I.
How do you know that I do not know
what constitutes the enjoyment of fishes?
At least they gave us the time of day
and we weren't just monsters — or dinner — in their eyes
(not that they were in general are any kinder to fish)
Bad Friday
Even when I was a tadpole swimming in the Sunday school
all they talked about were the things that were happening up there
somewhere
up there in the air
above the air that we could see
surrealistically from the depths of the sea
They were always talking about the most famous Fisherman of them all
the one who could walk on top of the water
but never swam in it
and if He did come down
it was to help some guy called Jonah
to escape the monsters (that was us) of the sea
Or he only cared about the little children
who would come to him
and sit quietly
and listen to his sermon
on a dry mountain
in a school on sun day
Down here in the depths of the water
I drink
by the light of the moon
and think to myself, to the Fisherman
fish were really people
or, worse, a sacred meal
Sunday mass, Good Friday
fish on Friday
fly fishing
deep sea fishing
fry day
It was all up in the clouds
there was no reality to it
fish that fly
but how could they fly when their fins were broken
clubbed
their bodies hauled up from the deep
in a net
if they were lucky
or with an iron hook through their lips
when all they were doing was swimming around
looking at the white incandescent coral reefs
bleached by the noxious chemicals
that slipped from the mechanical gills
and rudder tails
of the hungry gods?
My comrades have all been swept up from the deep
and broken on a wooden table
a wooden altar six feet long
brass handled
and they called it a sacred meal
fish and chips
battered
One more shot, bartender
——-
Next: Between the Flippers