by Robert Levine

Created on: February 26, 2010

TWO FISH

I

We wanted to fish only because

my cousin's new house stood on a lake-

the bass there were too small for eating.

Soon after casting, William felt a tug

and reeled in a fish not much bigger

than the lure shaped like a pickerel

with hooks all around.  One had worked

into the fish's side and pierced the skin

again from within.  William wouldn't touch it,

afraid that he would shred the flesh while sliding

the hook out to throw it back, but as the bass

struggled, brown blood running into the

wheezing gills, it caught on a second hook,

immobile.  William lowered it into the lake

to let the gills pump as long as they could;

in a second it slipped free and swam away,

its spreading trail of blood clouding the water.

II

The trout came out of the oven

shining from the oil sizzling

through its platinum skin.

Tiny eyes sable as obsidian.

Slender lips open

as resolutely as the brass

rim of a cloth coin purse;

around the spine,

disks of white flesh

as thick and smooth as coins.

We ate with the embarrassment

of thieves who suspect,

after their crime, that their victim

never knew he owned what they had stolen.

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