Broiled Summer Fish with Fruit Salsa

A hook is yanked from my mouth and I am staring at the wooden grooves of a ship's deck. This spot is sunny but I think I am dead. It hasn't been long because I'm surrounded by the moist silhouettes created by a body flopped out of water. The air is full of tar and fish residue. I assume I am the fish residue, and tar is simmering between cracks in the wood. I wonder how long it will be before my scales start peeling off and I am just a pile of blank eyes and glinting bits of skin. Chemicals would run off the heap and blend with other hot liquids seeped in the tar, and they rise and bubble together until the shavings would burst like confetti into a thousand---hey! I am kicked.

I have skidded halfway across the boat. It is cooler over here. Mangoes are piled high in a basket and with the movement of the boat one of them rolls over to me. It was bitten once and I am entranced by the up and down of the glowing gold circle as the fruit rotates. An instant before we meet, the mango veers and rumbles past in another direction. I envy its indifference. The haughty red-green is blanketed in a shadowy corner and I am filled with images of our ruined friendship: The wind licks our faces as the boat gains speed and I splash the mango playfully. Later, our eyes meet around the fire as I tell all the other mangoes stories of my homeland. The black framed fruit remains pasted in front of me until a hand lifts it from the floor. I return to my rotting form against the slabs, limp and slack-jawed with the weight of death.

Someone has picked me up by the tail and I am thrust into a lukewarm purgatory of other fish. There is no sound until we are all struck by a slight rustling towards the center of the barrel. A cod called Hank is emerging from the stiff bodies, squirming and leaping in desperation as if to rouse us. We are not faking, Hank, I muse to nothingness. The sterile gaze seems to hold his attention and his face is close to mine, reflecting bright life in my eyes as he slaps the lifeless bodies over and over. Pity festers from the drying mound with a heavy steam before it fades into the afternoon. A harmonica begins to play and the disembodied sympathies of all the former fish float with the mournful notes to envelop Hank. His flopping becomes slow, and he climbs into position at the top of the pile.

The barrel is capsized and we sprawl like silver ocean on a sloping net. There are new fish, more wet and also dead. I am thankful to rub against them so the net won't grate against my scales. Hanks are everywhere, and mes, and the surface against us is ever-changing, opening and closing from nets and barrels with a collective splatter. I imagine my path in a thin, red line, breaking the water and bouncing across the backdrops of whitewashed loading docks. Finally we are tossed for the last time and the sun shatters the jutting fish parts so I can't make out the dark figures moving above us.

I am now a member of a frozen organization. I am in a row, in a box, in a row of boxes. The world seems to stand completely still and it's always twilight. A yellow razor in the blue light means another box is taken. My thoughts drift elsewhere, above the crusty ice and to the cool, soft spot on the gently rocking deck and the bitten mango rolling back and forth in its dim corner. Time does not pass between the disappearing boxes. I wonder why I cannot drift fully into death, as I am unmoving and care for nothing but a piece of heaven in the form of a tropical fruit, hanging so close and unreal I can smell the colors.

My box is lifted from the barren cold and into a yellow kitchen. Water creeps off our stacked bodies and collects in pools at the bottom of the box. One by one we are smacked on the metal with a raw thud. Blunt, black hot explodes underneath and I am drowning in spittle grease as fairy seasoning rains from above. I become feeble meat, pierced and betrayed by my own spine as a blade fragments my senses into a shapely belly and the disposed heads and tails in the garbage. The belly rests on peaceful plate next to a sprig of green and I am once again a dead shape against the smooth white, but I don't mind.

Something rolls across the surface and nudges the plate. It is a mango. A scar burns brightly from its side and I want to melt into the porcelain and find death where it is meant to be, barely touching the mango's weathered skin. I am removed from my red lined path through the swinging doors and on to the linen table cloth, hung feebly from the prongs of dull a fork and diffused into stringy flesh. The clatter of dishes is lost to me in the breathy waves of sea salt breeze brought on by the sight of the mango. I am in a hush though inches from me the mango is stripped and sliced into fluorescent pieces on the steel counter top and mashed against the broken bodies of other fruit. Soon it is replaced by a small bowl of colorful nectar. A hand lifts the bowl and tilts it over my torso. New life pours from the edges in a honeyed waterfall. I am full of rushing liquid again, suspended in space and sweet, light fragrance.

The mango and I soak and wait on the full moon plate, ready at last for warm, wet oblivion.