Fishing

Japanese eats lots of fish, since it’s surrounded

By water. “Fish or die.” my father used to say,

But I found fishing boring. Dad’d drag

Us to these tiny rancid tributaries, teeming

With mosquitoes, dribbling into the Feather River.

I never caught anything.

Neither did my brothers.

But once, when she was ten, my sister, Shira,

Caught a perch. She was so happy over the look

In her father’s eyes, where I saw only

Disappointment in his sons’ failure to catch

Anything. Still, he hooked the gills with a branch

To anchor it in the water.

It kept it fresh for eating.

Shira admired her trophy for thirty seconds

Until she saw the fry swimming nearby

The gasping perch, a momma fish she guessed.

The babies were mourning their trapped mother

So she began to cry for her mortal sin. I looked

At my two younger brothers.

We just shrugged. Girls.

Perch are good to eat, so my mother did cook it.

No one of us wanted to eat the little thing,

So it went into the dog’s dish the next day.

Twenty years later, to my surprise, Shira

Remembers that it was me who caught

The fish and that I ate it with great relish.

For her sake, I wish it had been me.

March, 2008