Cast Net

I learned to bait my own hook young,

to force the bright tip through the minnow’s eye.

From the shore at night I watched my grandmother

gig for flounders, shrinking as she waded out

with a nail-tipped broom handle and flashlight.

Ripples spread as she stabbed at muddy shadows.

And in daylight I saw my uncles filet our catch,

knives splitting the silver bellies open

as gulls hovered close, screaming for scraps,

and I loved to crack open a crab’s chest,

dig for the feathery meat, lick the fat,

yellow and salty, from my fingertips,

but I was always shy around the cast net.

My father would gather the mesh into a dress,

a skinny girl draped over his arm,

clutch the neck and coil the line in his fist,

snatch a lead weight between his teeth.

The quick turn, the release: yards flew from him,

the net spread, then slapped the surface, sank.

I wondered how it tasted, the Gulf on his tongue.

The intimacy of the thing, the careful dance:

embarrassed I’d caught him locked in this embrace,

I kept my distance—though what he hauled up,

glistening and thrashing on the shore, I certainly ate.