Air-struck, wound-gilled, ladder

            upon ladder of them thrashing

through froth, herds of us climb

            the cement stair to watch

this annual plunge back to dying, spawn;

            so much twisted light

the whole tank seethes in a welter of bubbles:

            more like sequined

purses than fish, champagned explosions

            beneath which the ever-moving

smolt fume smacks against glass, churns them up

            to lake from sea level, the way,

outside, fishing boats are dropped or raised

            in pressured chambers, hoses spraying

the salt-slicked undersides a cleaner clean.

            Now the vessels

can return to dock. Now the fish,

            in their similar chambers, rise and fall

along the weirs, smelling the place

            instinct makes for them,

city’s pollutants sieved

            through grates: keeping fish

where fish will spawn;  changing the physics of it,

            changing ours as well:

one giant world encased

            with plastic rock, seaweed transplanted

in thick ribbons for schools to rest in

            before they work their way up

the industrious journey: past shipyard, bus lot,

            train yard, past

bear-cave, past ice-valley; past the place

            my father’s father once,

as a child, had stood with crowds   

            and shot at them with guns

then scooped them from the river with a net, such

            silvers, pinks cross-hatched with black:

now there’s protective glass

            behind which gray shapes shift: change

then change again. Can you see the jaws

            thickening with teeth, scales

beginning to plush themselves with blood; can you see

            there is so little distinction here

between beauty, violence, utility?

            The water looks like boiling sun.

A child has turned his finger into a gun.

            Bang, the ladders say

as they bring up fish into too-bright air, then down again,

            while the child watches the glass

revolve its shapes into a hiss of light.

            Bang, the boy repeats.

His finger points and points.