Poems #23 and #24: Catfish/Wearing Bees

Catfish

Father went away every weekend to a place we couldn't follow
and he'd always come back with things I'd never seen before.
One time, it was a dead bird he'd wrapped in his handkerchief
for me to see; I was fascinated by its tiny eyelids, the way the skin
matched its feathers, the scales on its legs.
Sometimes he would bring home a rock or a giant pinecone
and those were interesting enough until I forgot the stories
he'd always given me with them. With the words gone, so was their luster.
My favorite, though, was when he brought home the fish.
Always in the detergent bucket, with water and silt in the bottom,
always cramped, nimble bodies curved around the sides,
wide eyes staring in terror at the air-breathing giants above them.
I never knew how they died, but I would follow them from the yard
to the kitchen, where Mother was ready with her knife.
Her incisions were clean and practiced, right up the belly,
under the cheek, and the smell of them was sweet and watery
just like the candied blood soaked through the newspapers.
From then on, my nose took over --
I smelled everything from the cast-iron skillet,
the onions, the bacon grease and Crisco, the lima beans,
the sugar and flour, cheese, potatoes, the leaves and dirt outside.
Then, the dish, in three sections:
succotash, boiled vegetables, and a brown mass
lightly breaded and vaguely fish-shaped, without its head
but with all of its terror, still but sizzling.
It was the most amazing thing to me, the journey of that catfish
from its magical place to mine, the last it would know.
And it never occurred to me the suffering that went into that simple plate;
the work of my father, of my mother,
the life of everything else.





Wearing Bees

He claimed they did it because he smelled so sweet
but we knew the secret: a tiny cage where the queen
was held captive. Her knights would come first,
trying to draw her out, and then curious onlookers
rubber-necking the scene of the accident.
One bee would leave and dance the story to his friends
and they would come, a massive cloud
dimly aware that something great was happening,
that order had been disrupted, if only for a little bit.
They were content to be a part of it just to be near her,
the only order they needed. This is the love of a serf for his master,
something the old man would never understand.
"See?" he would say, and smile.
I always noticed how they would move away from his teeth.
"My breath is like honey to them."