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No Fishing

John Grey

In the shadow of red fall oak leaves,
behind the abandoned textile mills,
kids, mostly black, one or two Dominican,
sit on the cement wall,
dangle lines into the water,
despite the large wooden sign
of a fish harpooned by a thick red line.
They don’t catch much anyhow
and what they do is thrown back
into the slow brown dirge of a stream
or dropped in a bucket
to be taken home with pride,
then dumped in the trash
with a commiserating,
“You can’t eat this shit.”
Same old man shuffles by,
usual story, much spoken,
but little heard by his young audience,
how he was the first black guy
the mill ever hired,
how he would have been supervisor
if they hadn’t shut down,
moved operations down to Georgia.
And he pulled trout from that river -
whoppers — didn’t even need
a rod and reel —
did it with nothing but his bare hands.
The kids respond with their usual,
“Yeah, sure you did.”
And he moves on.
Kids don’t want to know
how there is less of everything now.
They’ve busted into the crumbling brick buildings.
They’ve seen the rats, the rusting machinery.
Same with the river.
Truck the or polluted fish,
they make do with whatever
the waters are willing to give.
There’s already one sign
with a red line through the middle.
Why make more?

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