Fish On

Photo copyright Vivian Faith Prescott

Here's my poem celebrating the end of the 

Alaskan summer & fall fishing season:

 

Fish On

 

The slaves of the Inside Passage

fish on gray water—waves tumbling

over the stern of the skiff,

 

huge white bellies float up from beneath

the surface. They gaff and heave—

ganions taut, circle hooks flying,

 

hands slipped inside orange rubber

gloves, wrapping around baseball bats—

thwack—wood cracking, splattering

 

blood and scales across the gunwales.

Fish blood flies—fins and tails beat

their ankles with force enough

 

to break a leg—This one’ll pay the fuel bill.

After the commotion dies, bludgeoned

halibut lay silent, one atop another,

 

sliding along the skiff bottom. The fishermen,

their black hair caked with scales, slime

oozing into salt-cracked fingers,

 

shout—whoo hoo—across the inlet—

voices rising with the gulls, mingling

in wind and mist. Men so tired as if drunk

 

on seventy-two hours of nonstop fishing—

red faces, slurred speech, staggering in green

Helly Hansens dripping with stench.

 

They trudge up my driveway, gravel clacking

beneath their rubber boots, returning home—

smelling of fish and money and sea.

 

 

 

 *Photos copyrighted by Vivian Faith Prescott

 

"Fish On" appeared in Turtle Quarterly "Work" issue and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2011.