Frank

Lashed - tied with chunks of twine - and hung head down

toward the dock, a knot of mackerel, thick sides flecked blue

and black swayed - impassively - eyes weeping brine…Curing:

under a merciless sun. A little line of ladies filed by, pushing

strollers: the tiny bodies, inside, nearly comatose.

A bunch of fishermen, staggering like dry drunks, hosed clean

the decks, readying the fleet. Readying for? What? a summer.

So hot I swear the walls were sweating…thermometers

shattered (some said). Everyone sheer lost their minds.

(It was a miracle to make it through, each day…)

Then came the rain… The gutters overflowed, basements

flooded, but the heat never broke. That was when your old lady

busted-in, harassed me with: what kind of person takes off with

a crew he hardly knows: what’s he up to? As if I knew. What

the hell? To be frank, I was tired, dead tired. Still I spent half the night

trying, driving, asking “have you…” And what not.

Revived - but not rested – before dawn by sirens, I knew.

But it was too late (for answers). And then there were more crabbed

questions. “Where did he get that? Why’d he have to draw? What

drove him to shoot…? They had no clue. But I knew

you - the old ways – remade new: crystallized (though the design

of you, ingrained, remained) now brought to bold relief. All of-a piece.

All of-an order: thick as flies, hovering beside the chalk outline,

near the lip of the tracks, beside a bed of gravel, they gawked,

and gathered. And then, another chorus of whys. But already the odd oval

that fetal held you, was fading, under fresh rain.

I can tell you, if you really want me to

be perfectly frank, I can tell you why, (just)

why (point blank): those fish heads

were shining.