On Myrtle Beach Pier

I remember the high arc of your line casting into horse-maned waves, strong hands as yet untroubled by trembling, easily reeling smaller fish to throw back in, again and again, a circle of give and take, and how after searching salt-surf, the jolt of fierce life banging the rod down almost to breaking cut a smile across your face, the frenzy to impose death on the unwilling fish, the satisfaction of almost losing shining in your eyes like light reflects off scales. I remember this, an emotional fish wriggling in my mind’s hands as I search my own churning waters, before it slips my grasp, too slick to pin down: red snapper-joy of fireworks, cherry soda; hagfish-hate spewing slime of racist jokes. I tried to deny them, bury them all at sea, but your barbs are hooked too deep in me. The grief, the love, the anger, the relief all cling to me like barnacles no lime can ever remove.