Some guys Dmitri meet at Wrigley Field,
all drunk to watch Cubs blow yet another lead,
later in week take Dmitri fish
for lake trout. One own boat, one rod and reel
to loan, and on that rod and reel Dmitri
hook something big, make rod tip plunge.
Set hook. Hoist, reel in. Hoist, reel in.
No fight, no life. Big can of lard, Dmitri
think, but no- when fish at last emerge,
is trout, but trout like Hieronymus Bosch would catch,
moldy white except for brown flower
warts. Fish very, very next to dead.
Revolting. Wrigley brothers laugh – fish
remind of Cubs, dead though appear alive.
Dmitri laugh, but at comparison,
not at his trout, trout that to live must eat,
trout that to eat must live, though dying,
long enough to drive up from black bottom
of Lake Michigan and take Dmitri bait.
Scrofulous, sick, repulsive as might be,
this fish die trying yet to live.
Sought only for pleasure human acquisition,
despisèd for how life has disfigurèd,
fight to his end, though can no longer fight.
Voices around him loud and laughing beer,
Dmitri look over grey roll of shoreless lake
and seeing unseen shore,
think, if anything holy, is this poor fish.
