Rage Hezekiah: Off the Coast

I fished with my father, who fished with his, 
both of us learning to plunge 
hooks into writhing night crawlers, 
in hopes of luring trout and bass, 
  
scaled, silvery things for dinner. 
I never shied from eating their crisped skin, 
blackened by the grill.  It all seemed natural, 
a slice of New England living. 
  
I’d planned for a certain kind of harm, 
sitting on the catamaran’s edge, I watched 
the waves trail behind us, ready. My filament 
of fishing line angled from a heavy pole. 
  
Why, then was I terrified snagging a bird 
who’d flown too close?  I cringed seeing it 
flap and flail, wings beating the ocean’s surface. 
Only willing to kill a single kind of creature, 
  
featherless, with vacant eyes, far removed 
from human. The crew cut the engine, 
set the brown booby free, unfamiliar men 
in life vests, desperate to stop my screaming.


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