I forgot to tell you about the unalloyed
joy of spearing carp making their spring
spawning runs up shallow clear creeks
flowing under country bridges all across
the Midwest, out to which we rode
our bikes with primitive spears balanced
deftly across the handle bars, eager to test
our skill against quarry that glided
upstream at the speed of phantoms
the instant they sensed our ulterior
presence, the apprentice throw almost
always errant or too late as the
school shot forward into the safety
of a culvert’s darkness, the surface
of the creek already rippling downstream
with the raw muscular power of more and
more carp, plentiful and unwanted, foreign
and peculiar with pursed lips and gelatinous
Fu Manchu facial whiskers, denizens
infesting the underworld of a cattail
slough’s marl, except in spring when they
ran up the clear creeks to spawn and we
boys rode our bikes out to the bridges
on a quest for the living heft of carp,
to feel the spear’s tines just once
through the slimy keratinous armor, the
sharp points emerging from the saffron
belly-bulge, the pierced fish thrashing
in the gentle current and hoisted
waggling into the air, onto the bank
already streaming blood, its stunned
eyes always delivering the same thing
with incomprehensible freshness.
