My father pierced the throat
and cinched the body around the hook.
Smooth metal formed a man-made spine.
He claimed they didn't feel
a thing, but I watched them peek at their J
bodies, try to stretch straight
along the metal, turn their heads away like a child
getting a shot.
I pet the rainbow
trout he caught. It circled the bucket
in a bleeding swim, one eye
dangling at the end of a thin pink thread, staring
up at the sky.
When I was old enough to unearth
worms with my father, I watched him on his elbows
and knees, head against the green prongs
of the grass. As he pulled at the worm it stretched and shrunk
like the string of a hooded
sweatshirt. When it came out smoothly,
he offered it praise, when it ripped in half he tossed his part
into the bucket, swore
at the half that slithered to a deep place to mend.
When it was my turn, I remembered the tiny poked
faces, asked if it could just be practice. He nodded, so I laid
my body against the grass and whispered to the worms, Come out,
it isn't for real this time. Lulled by my whisper, they rose in dozens
to the surface.
When he peaked into my bucket, a hundred worms
slithered and slimed.
He said I was a natural.I knew that night we'd share
our snack of poor
boy sandwiches and dill pickles. I skipped
toward the house, warming my hands with breath.
When I turned to hurry him I heard
a plop and a splash, saw him shaking my bucket
over the pond and the bass sloshing, surprised by the midnight
meal.I imagined pushing him in, the bass
nibbling his arms, legs, fingers,
bit by bit-- an offering to the screams
of the worms.
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