“My Mother is a Fish”

—Faulkner My mother is a fish and the sky is low and orange, and the long grass rises in the still air. The mud is black and worms turn their cold segments at my feet. I used to walk with an old lady. It seemed far from water and the ground sank. Weeds were higher than my head. Slugs slept in the mud. My mother is a fish and the sky swallows my head. A fine rain comes and softens the ferns. In March before the crocus and the lily, eggs bunch in the shoal of green jelly. Crabs glide through them. A kingfisher is dead on a rock. My mother is an eel winding a light around the rock. Even without a moon the black glows. * The sun grows like an egg over the bridge, the first birds are silver and swoop down for my mother. When the lady came we jumped— She took us to find worms we could squeeze in our hands. I went with my father to the dark water. I went with a bucket of mud. When we doubled the worm on the hook and it coiled, I could hear how a bass could thud. I grabbed it with a wet hand, and watched its eye go black as I dropped it in a metal bucket. Hack it along the gill and throw the head to the gulls.