Barry Dempster

Tallies

Those August mornings in the blue wooden rowboat
smelled of more than fish—fragrance of peeling paint,
scented sun lotion, muskiness of worms bleeding
on our hooks, peppery smoke from our cigarettes.
A flick every now and again to swat a horsefly
or flinch from the sheared gills of a smallmouth bass.
The palette of each catch as it was pulled
from the water, silver tarnished in an instant,
golden bellies, veils of tail fins. We kept records
of our tallies that summer, blood smudged brown
where we flipped each page. Sunfish took the lead,
—then perch and their green, the occasional pickerel—
sleeved stripes. We rowed back to shore
with breakfast in a bucket, sawed-off fish heads,
scraped ourselves a scarlet pile of scales.
The bones were practically transparent, a frail
shade of watery. How proud we were of the fried
breaded filets dipped in rosy blobs of ketchup,
glittering with sprinkled salt. By ten, the day
was a burning pinwheel of a prism. The only
sane thing was to swim, make our way along
the churning bottom of the Bay with our masks
and snorkels. We’d look into each other’s bulging
eyes and be surprised at how easily
we belonged there, breathless and all.

BARRY DEMPSTER

is the author of sixteen collections of poetry, most recently Being Here—the chemistry of startle.