Salmon Summers
Rent from DeepDyve- Salmon Summers
The fishermen’s wivesdon’t have to worry aboutmen chasing tail. Two monthson the boat and the men havegone electric. That’s whatthe vets call it aftera few seasons of catchingsalmon runs. Even thegreenhorn kid gets it.By week three of summertheir bodies are programmable,minds disconnected from spineslike chickens scurrying minutesafter their heads are lopped off.
There’s no place for women here,no words for women here.Go fuck yourself (translation:reel in the line faster).You’re a fucking pieceof fuck (translation: sortthe catch faster). Don’t bea fucking pig (translation:stop eating the salmonyou caught). Here, their mindsharken back to when lobsterwas still a poor fisherman’s food. [End Page 149]
Day in, day out, each salmoncaught, cleaned, sorted.They go to sleep pickingfish guts out of ocean-sprayed hair.Verging on summer solsticethey can almost feel thesinew severing from their bones.Of course, the wives don’tfeel the sacrifice. They seeonly the faces, somehow bothburned from twenty-four hoursof sun and apparently drainedcolorless, can’t seem to figurehow these two months in Alaskaturned their bodies into stone. [End Page 150]
Lilly Deng’s recent work can be found in the North American Review, South Carolina Review, Willow Review, and elsewhere. She is a graduate of Harvard College and holds a mba from Harvard Business School. She attended the Iowa Writers’ Workshop Summer Session in Poetry and currently resides in Boston, Massachusetts.
