after Elizabeth Bishop’s ‘The Fish’

 
On the first day, we ate the trout
with its skin on. Scales in my teeth.
You said: let the knife do the work.

*

The second day, I laid the fish out
onto its side; I pinched its edge and slid
the blade clean between fat and muscle.

*

Not all rainbow: here, tender orange,
there, rusted brown, the underside
gelatinous and white. Then the bones.

*

Over lunch, the man and the woman
carved fillets from each other
one word at a time.

*

The cat licks remnants of flesh
from flayed skin. Its tongue:
red, methodical, and barbed.

*

Nothing left for the third day
save the offcuts. Cubes of cured
trout layered on pickles and rice.

*

How to multiply one fish into many—
my mother ties an unseen knot. The string
is invisible, but the hooked fish still pulls.