The Fisherman by Anis Mojgani

The fisherman

throws his nets

At night, when he eats, he sits alone

His plate round as the moon

He lights one candle on his table

He cuts the fish with his fork and his knife

Peeling back its skin like a bed sheet

Most mornings he wakes before the sun

For the fish, they don’t sleep long

On some nights, when he’s been drinking heavily

He goes down to the rocks and he reads to the fish

He reads to them poems, poems from books

Poems about the human condition, about the muscles inside of him

That question and quiver and shiver in sleep

Bottle in one hand, book in the other

Books clutching poems like they were their mother

Too afraid to let their children out into the soft fear of the electric night

And he was the wild one to show them this world

His mother will never hold him like that again, he thinks

I’m too big

Book in one hand, bottle in the other

While the storms flock behind him like gathering ballooning corpses

He screams these poems, screaming out the words

Like they were teeth he no longer needed or cared for

He slurs his screams like a drunk preacher cutting a rope

Picking up poems like they were stones to fling at the foot of God’s throne

Hurling word, after word, after word

Waiting for some door in some black cloud, but nothing happens

The rain falls, the waves swing, and the fish sleep

And awake, and sleep, and awake, and again and again

In the rocking of the ocean

He stands above them like a Noah surrounded by bucket after overflowing bucket

And all he has left to catch this wet lightning is this open mouth

So he reads to them

He reads to them about things that none of them will ever see

About flowers opening

About birds as large as cliffs, holding heroes between their silver wings

Carrying these warriors into the open grace of the gods

And a mighty providence this fisherman stands inside of

Their shields and shoulders polished hard enough to blind the sun right back

He empties himself and the waves swing

He goes home, falls into bed, sleeps all the next day

Night comes through his window like a dream, like a fever

Like a mother to hold him close to her

He wakes inside of her arms, goes to his kitchen

Lights his candle, cooks his audience

And peels back its skin like a bed sheet before crawling inside