Heidi Seaborn

Fish Story

This story starts with a squall 
of gulls, heavy fog,
bishop pines windswept,
the Pacific somewhere 
in the distance,
salmon churning
toward the Russian River.
I sit on the deck outside a cabin,
beneath a weight 
of quilts. It’s cold.

In the kitchen freezer, 
there’s a whole salmon
that I caught last summer
in a rushing river.
Gutted, then iced. 
I’ll eat it one day—the salmon
or is it a trout?
Whatever, it was a good weight
(twenty lbs.) and now it’s frozen.

As I write this, I keep revising up
the weight of the fish—
the salmon or trout—
next it’ll be thirty lbs. 
I could go higher,
a real whopper!

Because the story about the fish—it’s 
a diversion.
But the squall,
the gulls, the blanketing fog,
the weight of my body—
is all true. 

Well, almost. 
Beneath that heaviness 
of the quilts, the fog, the day—
my body was lighter,
emptied.

I’m trying to tell you: that day, 
I was gutted. 

Back to Issue XI…