The August of my hysterectomy
I lay stunned in tidewater heat.
My slippery mind swam northward
to bright channels of an earlier summer
where secret bodies of perch and bass,
pike and pickerel hung wavering
around granite islands doubled
when the wind held its breath.
Savage our exultation, teasing
our catch to the red canoe,
the black bass lunging for life;
then the net, the stringer through gills
bloody, and once ashore, the knife
stripping off little coins of armor.
We slit the pale belly, gouged out
the intricate organs, saving only
the roe; then rinsed her lessened body
in water cold as anesthesia.
We ate the grilled flesh with spoons,
picking out bones with our fingers.
Trash, trash to bury in the scant soil.