Engineering Fish Scales

Your hand on 
the small of my back
at the fish counter.
The pebbled ice 
trickling down to our
feet,
we are staring 
into the eyes of the dead.


Redfin and grouper
look back without care,
nonchalant in their
gazes. You put your hands out
and grasp their slick bodies,
thin and silver coated,
against the waves
of home.


The man in the apron
stares at you, and the same
look I give you when you
talk to the cupboards
about Mozart. 
But the wandering hands
are not new, and they graze
each fish as you talk to me,
still watching all the iridescent
hues change on their backs.


The lobster boats of home wailing
in your head, the salty ice
of Decembers back East. 
In summer you sang opera
hauling fish from the depths
and you kissed each one for
good luck. 
But it was lost, and you were
shipped for Engineering school.


Compasses your friends,
and your working hands put to paper
to build flat prints of real
structures.


The same hands graze the
bodies, and you grab at
a codfish, hold fish lips
to yours,
a change on the supermarket breeze.