Angerfish: A Poem by Minal Hajratwala

In the January 2011 Books in Brief, I reviewed Indivisible, an anthology featuring the works of American poets with roots in India, Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka.

One of my favorite poems in the collection is Minal Hajratwala’s “Angerfish,” which borrows from the Dhammapada and which is remarkable for its straightforward yet gorgeous language and for its sensuality.

 

Angerfish

…who ‘wrap up’ anger—that is, wrap around [themselves] repeatedly the anger based on the thought ‘he reviled me,’ and so on, like wrapping up the pole of a cart with thongs, or putrid fish with straw—when enmity arises in such persons, it is not appeased, pacified.

—Dhammapada I.4

I.

On the first day
the fish wrapped in straw
starts to stink.

On the second day
if you walk by the barn
it enters your clothes.

That evening your wife
sniffs your suit
but says nothing.

On the third day
dressed in your skin
the fish begins to walk.

Your friends know
to hold their breaths.
This is not the first time.

If nothing else happens
the fish retreats
to its mean nest.

You shower.
It sleeps
waiting for you.

Fish oils
soak the hay
of the whole barn.

The chickens begin to dream
of seaweed,
of roe.

II.

In the middle of it
the fish
is the wisest
truest thing you know.

It whispers
sweet sauces—
We are brought here to love, yes,
but not blindly.

Its jelly eye
winks at you
codes of Morse—
No remorse.

Every oracle
takes its price,
skin for scales,
gold for gills.

Some days
it is a bargain.
Or else it costs
everything you have.

III.

I was raised without the fish
as some children are raised without candy
or time.

No one in my family spoke of it
as no one spoke then of cities
or queers.

Somehow in the cradle, rocking,
I caught a whiff; or in the crib clutching
at rails

a bit of fish caught
rough in my scream.
Swallow.

Since then the fish has grown in me
like bubblegum or seeds of water
melons.

Since then we’re bosom tight
thick as thieves sealed with a
kiss  —  kin.

Is this what I meant
when I longed for teeth?
Is this what they meant

when they named me fish?
Soon I shall slit my
belly

to stroke its silver scales
bilious, slippery
as love.

IV.

At last the fish
swallows its own tail

scale by creamy scale
orgy of self-

righteous     lips
on sharp bone

tongue sucking spine
vertebra by vertebra

teeth shredding
gummy ovaries

ripe with black meat
millions of living

egg of fish.
Belly full of self

soft pulsing
heart of fish

parallel eyes
forehead

white gills
filled

with the last sea.
When the fish

is all jaw
row of incisors

grinding plankton
coral     salt

churning oceans
like milk

into sweet fat
gold

then I will be ready
for you.