A Notable Catch in a Tourist Town

This poem appears in the Summer 2019 issue of Modern Age. To subscribe now, go here.

Steady, as the afterdeck is shifting
Beneath his boots, a fisherman is lifting
             The tuna’s sickle tail
             While, hanging from the rail
  Above, the cable-line grows taut;
  Now twice the ponderous fish is caught.
Hoisted above the gathered crowd that presses,
Its shadow falls on billowing sundresses
             With children under sail,
             And gulls screech overhead.
Not everyone’s convinced the fish is dead.

Dwarfed by his catch, the captain’s standing proudly
To one side. Choirs of tight-leashed shih tzus loudly
              Acclaim his mighty deed.
              So many mouths to feed!
  Fashioned out of onionskin,
  The origami dorsal fin
Already is a picnic spread for midges.
How creaturely is food outside of fridges;
              Breathless, it still can bleed
              And may be photographed
By lovers leaning from their pleasure craft.

Even aboard the emerald yacht from Britain,
The News, this headline not yet even written
              Has its readers hooked;
              They leave the berths they’ve booked
  To ask “Who? What? Where? When?” and “Why?”
  Potbellied clouds ascend the sky
And pause there, peering over someone’s shoulder.
Ripplets slap their notes into a folder.
              To see where the others looked,
              Each tries a different tack;
A girl in shorts climbs on her boyfriend’s back.

Undaunted at the fringe of this commotion,
The terns swoop down and plunge into the ocean,
              Rise up and wheel again,
              More purposeful than men
  Who’ve planned for months to live at ease
  Two weeks in seaside properties,
Only to find the constant leisure taxing;
To join the crew at work might be relaxing.
              A boy who’s maybe ten
              Cuts through the crowd and thrills
To catch a glimpse inside the gaping gills.

Founded in 1957 by the great Russell Kirk, Modern Age is the forum for stimulating debate and discussion of the most important ideas of concern to conservatives of all stripes. It plays a vital role in these contentious, confusing times by applying timeless principles to the specific conditions and crises of our age—to what Kirk, in the inaugural issue, called “the great moral and social and political and economic and literary questions of the hour.”