01/05/2024
FISHING BEFORE YOU KNOW HOW TO FISH – Courtney Martin
Through the pines and the one maple I hear her.
I shouldn’t have gone fishing if I didn’t know how to fish.
I shouldn’t have gone fishing if I didn’t know how to fish.
There she stands
legs impossibly long
pink and black polka dot swimsuit baggy
pole in her hands
and a little oval sunfish impossibly on her hook.
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I don’t tell her, but I do think
Oh, sweet girl, life is always like that.
Fishing before you know how to fish.
Leaving before you know how to leave.
Speaking before you know how to speak.
Fighting before you know how to fight.
Loving before you know how to love.
Dying before you know how to die.
We are all the child with the pole
worrying about who we’ve hurt.
And we are all the fish on the hook,
hoping for mercy.
Her aunt hears her muttering prayer
and though she hasn’t unhooked a fish in 30 years
grabs the wriggling innocent in her hands
and dislodges metal from cheek.
And this, too, is all of us.
Saved again and again by prayer we didn’t know we were saying
and a witness we forgot was listening.
