Reeling in a Skate on Kachemak Bay, Alaska
We drop bait and jig down eighteen fathoms,
trolling bottom for the halibut they say
are white and big as jib sails full of wind.
We drift this way all morning and I watch the men
pull up 30-pounders and sometimes
scaly Irish Lords, lustered as fool’s gold.
Drugged by the surprising warmth of this
eclipsed and argent Arctic light, I am amazed
when my line drags taut and in my hands
the heavy rod dips like a heron bends to drink.
I reel and reel, pulling up my own weight,
heavy as wet canvas. The men say to go slowly,
it will roll in fear and dive from foreign sun—
this fish has never seen the light. But who knows
what I’ve snagged from sodden sleep,
what blunt-eyed creature I haul out of darkness,
a ghostly harbinger that wavers toward me
like an insubstantial scrap of paper,
becoming larger as it nears. Too tired to resist
the last few feet it seems to help,
ascending easily, entranced by this bright world.
by Susan Elbe
—from Rattle #16, Winter 2001