What, if anything, small things can reveal
a lil poem (about fish, of course) inspired by the idea of smallness letting you in to a stranger's life or experience. title wip.
Begin with the halibut
resting on the butcher’s block.
Begin with the scissors he will use
to carefully snip off the fins. Better yet, begin
with the small cut the butcher makes behind the head
in a curve to lift out the gills, hooking his finger
to pull out and shake loose the breathing
machine. What precision. What tender
permission the cut grants the butcher, who,
though he has touched fish like this
hundreds of times before, knows
it is important, this way of restoring
something like life to the chilled body,
the necessary way his blade loves
everything it touches.
love the delicacy of the zoom-in to the "small cut the butcher makes behind the head / in a curve to life out the gills" - the imagery in that whole line is so vivid and precise, I feel like I'm looking in the reflection of the blade itself !
thanks katie! 🥰
a lil poem (about fish, of course) inspired by the idea of smallness letting you in to a stranger's life or experience. title wip.
Begin with the halibut
resting on the butcher’s block.
Begin with the scissors he will use
to carefully snip off the fins. Better yet, begin
with the small cut the butcher makes behind the head
in a curve to lift out the gills, hooking his finger
to pull out and shake loose the breathing
machine. What precision. What tender
permission the cut grants the butcher, who,
though he has touched fish like this
hundreds of times before, knows
it is important, this way of restoring
something like life to the chilled body,
the necessary way his blade loves
everything it touches.
love the delicacy of the zoom-in to the "small cut the butcher makes behind the head / in a curve to life out the gills" - the imagery in that whole line is so vivid and precise, I feel like I'm looking in the reflection of the blade itself !
thanks katie! 🥰