The Fisher

“Come with me,” the man said, “and I will make you fishers of men.”

“What possible good is that to me?” the fisher asked.

“The flesh of men
is not so sweet
as fresh-caught trout.

And fish may jerk and gasp and die upon the line–
but they do not whine.

You’ll get no complaint from herring, mackerel, saradine–
but hook a man and he’ll complain
on every slight he’s ever suffered,
from the cradle to the grave.

You’ll beg to throw him back.

It would be a better trick, entire,
to make men out of fishers.”

[hr]

Um. Yes. My apologies for descent into the wretched realms of free verse, but there was a distinct cadence in my head, and you suffer my doggerel as a result. Mea culpa! It’s a follow-up to the Owl Saint, I guess. They seem to be from the same…err…world? Plane? Chunk of grey matter? Religion?

Somebody’s going to ask what creature this is supposed to be–fishing cat, Pomeranian, Persian, fox, maybe a really poor rendering of that large weasel called a fisher–and the answer is, it isn’t. It’s nothing in specific. It’s not an anthro animal in the conventional sense, it’s just another thing from my head trying to look wrong the right way.

If you locate a meaning, I hope you brought enough to share with the whole class.

13 x 19 Jumbo Print, edition of 25