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The Singing Fish: Revisited

Peter Markus

photo by Ian Bassingthwaighte

Sometimes, us brothers, we take the fish that we fish out from the dirty river that runs its way through this dirty river town, and we take these fish, into our mud-rusty buckets, back up to the back of our house's backyard, out back to where there is this fish-headed telephone pole back there studded with the chopped off heads of fish. But there are times when, before we gut and before we cut off these fish's fish heads, sometimes we like to take these fish and sometimes we like to line these fish up, in fish rows, out back in the back of our yard. When we line these fish up, in rows of fish like this, out back in the back of our backyard, us brothers, what we do next is this: we take turns stepping, with our boots, gently, onto these fish's beautiful white bellies—to see what kinds of beautiful fish sounds this, these fish, might with their bodies make. Most of the time, when we step, like this, gently, with our boots, onto the bodies of these fish, these fish make come out of their open fish mouths a gasping sound, the sound of a fish's last breath being taken and then taken away. But there are these other times, too, when we step, gently, with us brothers’ boots, onto the body of one of these fish, when out of this fish's fish mouth comes a sound that can only be called or said to be singing. When a fish like this begins to sing like this, us brothers, we know there is only one thing for us to do. We drop down, onto our hands and knees, down into the mud, and like this, with our ears pressed down to be close to this fish's singing fish mouth, we open up our own mouths and begin to eat.