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Free Verse
Elizabeth Howard, US
Fish Story
I get up early to check my limb lines
before school. I grab cornbread left
from supper and take off before Mama
comes fussing. I slow down in the fog
near the creek, fearing I’ll turn an ankle
on a rock or collide with a briar patch.
And then, somebody grunts, something
splashes, and keeps on splashing. A bedlam
in the creek. Murder, I think, the story
I read last night still fresh in my mind—
a body weighted and thrown in the river.
Lord have mercy, a voice says. I know
that voice, Uncle Jerdan, the old black man
who lives on a rocky crest in the woods.
He and Aunt Dinah help us with odd jobs
about the farm. He wouldn’t kill anybody.
It hurt him to kill a mad fox. I’ve seen
his hands tending sick animals, cows
giving birth, runts—pigs and lambs.
That you, Bud? I nearly jump out of
my skin. How does he know I’m here?
Come give me a hand. I move forward
like a robot. I find him in the willows,
a giant fish flopping in his hand.
That fish about whips both of us before
we get it on the bank. After he catches
his breath, he grasps a long whisker.
Grabbling, he laughs. Best fun in the world.
His hand is covered with bloody scratches,
and a spine has ripped half the leg off
his overalls. I look at the bank where he
caught it, dirt raw and rutted from spring floods,
home of snapping turtles and cottonmouths.
As for me, I’ll stick to cane poles and limb lines.
I hear Mama trill. She sends me to school
wet and slimy, no fishing for a month,
extra chores when I get home, but
boy, do I have a story to tell at recess.
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