On Fishing

poem by Stephanie Airth

The trout is a sliver of silver birch bark
With gills like beet-stained paper snowflakes
And a heart black as cherry jelly.

It lays congealed on the gutting table;
One solar eclipse eye wilts as it stares
Up at heaven and sees
.                                        nothing.

It knows
It is the first thing I have ever killed.