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Home / Bulletin 3 / On Eating Walleye Pike at the St. Paul Grill

Jun 18 2021

On Eating Walleye Pike at the St. Paul Grill

By Doreen Stock

Poetry

ASP Bulletin | July 2, 2021

< before next >

These are FARMED, Grandpa,

something you could never have imagined 

as you sat patiently chewing on the stump

of a cold cigar, straw fishing hat squished down

over your bald head, “There’s Old Man Diamond,” 

Daddy would tease, as you sat waiting for 

the solitary-as-you-were walleye pike as he  

swirled at the bottom of Big Floyd Lake.

 

They cooked it in PECANS AND MAPLE SYRUP,

Grandma, a taste you could never imagine, as you stood

aproned, the red gingham curtains behind you and that

old toilet that ran all the time as background music

and you shook the fresh caught fish in your brown paper bag

of Bisquick and laid them lovingly in the sputtering pan 

over sliced onions. Crispy, the slight dark parts of their  

flesh a hint of the deep shadows of the lake’s underworld 

from which they were drawn…

 

Farmed? Pecans and maple syrup? Did I fly two thousand

miles for this? No rhubarb crisp on the menu, no canasta

duels deep into the night betwixt the two of you, the lamp

over the oilcloth-clad kitchen table swinging slightly, circling

your nightly playing field. All of this I had for ten summers 

in our perverse and war-torn world and was never asked

to pay the bill.

These are FARMED, Grandpa,

something you could never have imagined 

as you sat patiently chewing on the stump

of a cold cigar, straw fishing hat squished down

over your bald head, “There’s Old Man Diamond,” 

Daddy would tease, as you sat waiting for 

the solitary-as-you-were walleye pike as he  

swirled at the bottom of Big Floyd Lake.

 

They cooked it in PECANS AND MAPLE SYRUP,

Grandma, a taste you could never imagine, as you stood

aproned, the red gingham curtains behind you and that

old toilet that ran all the time as background music

and you shook the fresh caught fish in your brown paper bag

of Bisquick and laid them lovingly in the sputtering pan 

over sliced onions. Crispy, the slight dark parts of their  

flesh a hint of the deep shadows of the lake’s underworld 

from which they were drawn…

 

Farmed? Pecans and maple syrup? Did I fly two thousand

miles for this? No rhubarb crisp on the menu, no canasta

duels deep into the night betwixt the two of you, the lamp

over the oilcloth-clad kitchen table swinging slightly, circling

your nightly playing field. All of this I had for ten summers 

in our perverse and war-torn world and was never asked

to pay the bill.

These are FARMED, Grandpa,

something you could never have imagined 

as you sat patiently chewing on the stump

of a cold cigar, straw fishing hat squished down

over your bald head, “There’s Old Man Diamond,” 

Daddy would tease, as you sat waiting for 

the solitary-as-you-were walleye pike as he  

swirled at the bottom of Big Floyd Lake.

 

They cooked it in PECANS AND MAPLE SYRUP,

Grandma, a taste you could never imagine, as you stood

aproned, the red gingham curtains behind you and that

old toilet that ran all the time as background music

and you shook the fresh caught fish in your brown paper bag

of Bisquick and laid them lovingly in the sputtering pan 

over sliced onions. Crispy, the slight dark parts of their  

flesh a hint of the deep shadows of the lake’s underworld 

from which they were drawn…

 

Farmed? Pecans and maple syrup? Did I fly two thousand

miles for this? No rhubarb crisp on the menu, no canasta

duels deep into the night betwixt the two of you, the lamp

over the oilcloth-clad kitchen table swinging slightly, circling

your nightly playing field. All of this I had for ten summers 

in our perverse and war-torn world and was never asked

to pay the bill.

Stock1
Stock1

< before next >

Doreen Stock is a poet and memoir artist living and writing in Fairfax, CA. Her works include: Bye Bye Blackbird, poems of her mother's last years (The Poetry Box April, 2021); Tango Man, a collection of love poems (Finishing Line Press, 2020); In Place Of Me, poems selected by and with an Introduction by Jack Hirschman ( Mine Gallery Editions, 2015);  My Name is Y, an anti-nuclear memoir (Norfolk Press,2019).  A selection from her poetry and translation work has been video-archived at Marin Poets, Live! She is a founding member of the Marin Poetry Center.

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