Three Poems by Vivian Faith Prescott
- Vivian Faith Prescott
- 1 day ago
- 3 min read
by Vivian Faith Prescott
What To Do If You Crave Fish Tacos?
1. Wake up in the 4:00 a.m. daylight.
2. You’ve packed your go-fish bag the night before—
notebook, pen, snacks. Don’t forget the herring bait.
3. You and your husband and dogs load up the boat at the nearby harbor.
4. Decide on salmon or halibut before you go—halibut it is.
5. Your father’s been gone-fishin’ in the spirit world for 6 months now, so head to his favorite bay.
6. At the halibut hole, jig and jig to the rhythm of a wandering and wondering brain—Will it be corn shells or flour shells? Coleslaw or lettuce and tomato? What kind of cheese is in the fridge?
7. Jig to thoughts of the birthday cake you want—chocolate cake to honor your father. You might offer some cake to his ghost.
8. Jig, jig the line to your cravings of fresh-caught halibut sautéed in butter and garlic, ready to be tacoized.
9. Crave tacos and chocolate birthday cake, crave your father’s stories, crave unmasked faces, a grandchild’s cuddle. Crave tomorrow when you turn 63.
10. Feel the hard tug of fish and age. See it run the line. Reel. Reel up more. Reel up the halibut and shark hook it. Shoot the fish with the .22 if you must. Heave the halibut aboard and bonk it on the head.
11. Bring the fish home and slice off the fillets outside on your fish-cleaning table.
12. What to do if you crave fish tacos? Tomorrow, you’ll break this pandemic fast. It’s been four years since you’ve invited them over. You’ll invite your family out on your deck next to the sea while the tide rises. You’ll fill up your belly and your birthday with bliss. You’ll go to bed all full of flat-fish and grandkid giggles.
Come With Me to the Salmonberry Bushes
I offer you the first salmonberry sprouts, snapped off,
peeled and eaten raw. I offer shade and footholds
and small offshoots growing beneath parent plants.
I offer berries to awaken your winter-snoozy body.
I offer the promise of salmonberry tea, moist rich soil,
thorn-scratched wrists, leaf-strewn hair, a stick-poked thigh,
bug-bitten eyebrows. I offer it now, the berry garden jingle,
that Swainson’s thrush’s trill, called the salmonberry bird,
sugary-er than the berry. Flower and bird marking
season, migration, and delight. Whether streambank,
alpine slope, or my driveway, after this, your body
is a sweaty, hooded mess, rain-slogged, skin scraped.
Rubus spectabilis, Was’ X’aan Tléigu—showy flowers,
toothed leaflets, a pioneer species, nature-lush. May I offer
you this disturbance, essential for the juiciest to grow.
Be like the salmonberry—persist in the understory,
and bustle with bees, the berries, and the thrush.
Come follow me. Bring your berry bucket.
*Lingít for salmonberry: Was’ X’aan Tléigu
Grandpa’s Alchemy
Grandson Jonah climbs up onto the kitchen chair
and sits at a small round kitchen table.
In front of him, my father, his Great Grandpa,
sets an empty mason jar. Great Grandpa threads
a bamboo skewer through the hooligan
fish’s belly and balances the stick atop
the open mouth of the jar. Want to see some magic?
he asks. And Jonah nods his head while gleeing, “Yes!”
To a young great grandson, Great Granpa is
a spellcaster—the guy who knows everything,
who can conjure up a snazzy blueberry bucket
from a coffee can, and trick up a fishing pole
or hand line with equal pazazz. Now, with a lighter,
my father lights the fish’s head and the fat flashes
and a small flame rises above the fish’s nose.
I did this for your Mummo when she was little,
he says, meaning me. Grandpa leans in toward
the flaming fish, “That’s why they call the hooligan
a candle fish,” he says, “because it’s so oily
you can use the fish like a candle.”
For a moment, the scent of burning smoked fish
ignites me into childhood again
with all its magic feels—that time before
the real-world slips in. And Grandson Jonah, leans
on his chubby hands toward the fish, staring
into the flame as time flickers forward and back
and we stand around, for a few moments
mesmerized by this springtime ritual.