Fishing Bait

Fishing Bait

I was playing in the sandbox when the shovels came./ They wouldn’t stop digging, so I
      went to the river/ with Dad. I was in charge of the tackle box. I got bored

after five minutes, started to play/ with the worms. I wondered / what part my dad
     skewered: the brain or the butt.

I got bored after five minutes and started to play with the fish/ Dad had caught. Its gills
     opened like blinds/ and its eyes/ visibly/ dried./ I put worms in the fish mouth, the
     closest I’d get to burying it. When my dad wasn’t/ looking, I wriggled a worm into my
     own/ mouth. I didn’t like feeling dead, like a fish. Bored

after five minutes, I became the worm./ I didn’t know brain from butt, this time I didn’t
     care./ Dirty and skewered and drowning. But the water was cooler/ than the summer
     dirt and at least

I knew that the hook burrowing/ through me belonged to someone/ strong. Dad, with one
     last tug/ on the fishing/ pole,/ said we were leaving for the day. I told him I was bored
     after five minutes.

Back home in the sandbox, the shovels came again and they wouldn’t stop digging up
     worms.