The Fisherman
As a boy, his own salt
was spilt by his father
in a small ship –
grabbed his hair thinking
it were a fishing net and said
Open
he opened
and tasted how foul
raw fish are
how difficult
to remain one’s eyes open
beneath the sea, but much
more so above it
the weight of light
so heavy
even the skin beneath feels it
the wish bottle that they once
threw together, breaking to a pair
of brown eyes, unread.
So every fish caught after,
had their moons removed
from their clouds, plucked out
like peeping pearls that he buries
on the shore, by his unfading
footprints
that no longer fit.
Calling out to the slightest
most tender force
that would usher the waves
an inch closer to the dry clam, whose lips
the winds can no longer
pry apart.
At dusk he’d pour the oils
of his night lamp
on to the planks he’d filled
with drawings of
fences, the finger paintings
that made his father smile
and him – leap
into the sea, where waves
disrobed the scales
from his body
and crushed them
along with a fog of sand
and soundless shells, lain beside
a graveyard of seaweed.
For a moment he was
an ocean
yet his voice remained sound
and his lungs within.
Only one of his father’s oars
tore through the storm
like a crumbling moth wing.
The wood he carved into a chopping
board before him
where a milkfish slept
and with a tweezer
gently pulled out each bone
as if it were himself. Open
He says, and it
was opened – too ready to leap
into a lake, into foam
or a cellophane packet, sealed
and shipped to his father’s home
his eyes open
and somebody chokes.
As a boy, his own salt
was spilt by his father
in a small ship –
grabbed his hair thinking
it were a fishing net and said
Open
he opened
and tasted how foul
raw fish are
how difficult
to remain one’s eyes open
beneath the sea, but much
more so above it
the weight of light
so heavy
even the skin beneath feels it
the wish bottle that they once
threw together, breaking to a pair
of brown eyes, unread.
So every fish caught after,
had their moons removed
from their clouds, plucked out
like peeping pearls that he buries
on the shore, by his unfading
footprints
that no longer fit.
Calling out to the slightest
most tender force
that would usher the waves
an inch closer to the dry clam, whose lips
the winds can no longer
pry apart.
At dusk he’d pour the oils
of his night lamp
on to the planks he’d filled
with drawings of
fences, the finger paintings
that made his father smile
and him – leap
into the sea, where waves
disrobed the scales
from his body
and crushed them
along with a fog of sand
and soundless shells, lain beside
a graveyard of seaweed.
For a moment he was
an ocean
yet his voice remained sound
and his lungs within.
Only one of his father’s oars
tore through the storm
like a crumbling moth wing.
The wood he carved into a chopping
board before him
where a milkfish slept
and with a tweezer
gently pulled out each bone
as if it were himself. Open
He says, and it
was opened – too ready to leap
into a lake, into foam
or a cellophane packet, sealed
and shipped to his father’s home
his eyes open
and somebody chokes.
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