Fish Sellers


In the mall parking lot,
whitefish are flat, identical
as church gloves in Goodwill bins.
Between van doors the eyestalks of lobsters,
almost alive,
measure snowlight in March,
alien to them all,
the dry ice in milk cartons
lasting longer than anything here,
with shrimp parenthesizing fish-heads,
haddock wrapped in dead news,
fake nets varicose coverings
on iced back windows,
oyster shells the shucked ears of oceans,
eels sliced into fingerlings,
and some scales shining
back from the gravel and steel-toed boots,
and shaken from that astrology
as though starfish were really stars.

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