Gone Fishing
Before they bury your father, you eat plastic bags of goldfish, stack tuna fish sandwiches into stomach skyscrapers, slurp salmon off wood boards, down sardines from sharp containers, sing duets with big mouth bass, lick rainbow book fish, and laugh as clown fish swim in your belly.
When there’s no room for bait or folding fortune-telling fish, you see fish floating in your blood, ichthyology meshed with humanology, swimming upstream, upcolon, eyeballs bulging behind yours.
You sleep, flopping restlessly on your deck, fish guts and blood as a mattress. You beg fishmongers to swing your legs and arms across 5:00 AM catch-of-the-day piles. You pretend your eczema is scales and scratch until there are patches all over.
You buy a mermaid tail for your niece, but wear it first in your clawfoot tub with its Poseidon feet and trident legs. You plan a trip to a mountain stream to battle bears for salmon.
The funeral parlor owner holds his nose when you arrive in a Mrs. Frizzle fish-patterned dress and fish hook earrings. You bring tuna fish sandwiches for the after-service potluck. A long-haired man hands out fish and bread. You consider asking if he knows Jesus’ other miracles, especially the one with Lazarus.
The fishing schedule is printed on your dad’s program next to scriptures about the Leviathan. He missed opening day by a week, we always went together, you tell your cousins and aunts.
There are fish swimming in his clear coffin like a toilet seat cover full of plastic fish. He’s wearing his Hawaiian fish shirt, the one your mom picked for the last family vacation luau.
You can’t find farewell words because you’re too full of fish.
A rainbow trout falls out of your mouth and catches all the light in the room.
Bereavement Fare
Your shoes are white when you board.
You have no luggage. No one fights to get on the plane first. Two people are dragged on. The stewardesses wear dark wigs with bangs that make them look like spies. Fishnet hose and black airplane-issued shoes. Some in slacks, others dark crinolines. All in jaunty death scarves imprinted with skulls.
Their faces are as pale as yours, with Raggedy Ann blush blots.
“Welcome aboard,” they say.
One hands you a warm cloth. It unfolds into a damp American flag. Small children carry Colorform books with coffin and skeleton stickers.
You step through coffee grounds smushed into your shoes. At seat 6, the grounds are replaced with the odors of potting soil and black mulch mixed with manure.
Your nose burns.
When you sit, a sea of darkness rises to your neck.
You pull the airsick bag out. Your mother’s high school graduation picture is on the back next to her obituary. She’s smiling.
Your seat mates stare at their grandmother and uncle.
Died doing what she loved. Wife. Mother. Friend. Teacher.
The plane takes off. Stewardesses stumble with tuna casseroles in aluminum pans and pound cakes in frozen foil. Black coffee in floral teacups.
Your seatmates sleep because they’ve ordered sedatives. You didn’t.
A Star is Born plays on everyone’s screen. Then, Steel Magnolias.
The stewardesses have shovels with airplane logos.
They slide coffins into the empty dinner compartments and toss in dirt.
The plane is landing soon.
They announce. But no one’s listening. They’re eating lukewarm casserole and crying over Shelby.
The plane lands. You pull a carved wood box from the overhead compartment. The second passenger in your row is refusing to get off the plane.
Everyone else exits, leaving behind only black footprints on the gate’s carpet.