Aunt pulled against pulls, gills flared like peacock tails. She flayed jacinth fans of cartilage with a wooden handled knife and slopped fish ribbons into a rosy, plastic basin. I then endowed glistening remains in a sheet of yesterday s newspaper, to citizen scavengers at nearby woods while birches surged into a wax paper sky. With January s thirst unquenched silted streams were stillborn in spring. Our lake became sour and low.
Gulls organize on a parking lot into groups of chalky toys squawking louder than in last summer.
Fish are an arduous catch. Beaks and feet adapt to collect a filthy lucre of crumbs and fries scattered about the fringes. As stalking martinets they are also snatching at bent cigarettes before wheeling like small dragon kites, farther away from the lake. A freight train bellowed from faraway over shreds of freezing sunset. Homes and cars in this tight valley have become grounded reminders of stars.