JF: Hopefully Leading Somewhere - Two Poems

Hey folks,
Welcome to the Stairs that Lead Nowhere. My name is Jerry Fagerberg and it's my distinct pleasure to be posting some poetry here on the blog to share with y'all.

Without further ado, here's a sonnet I wrote:

A Tug on the Line
Soon he’ll be still. He’ll quit slapping and flailing
and lay flat on the deck in tired defeat.
No more sideways dance, no more twisting of tail.
As soon as his gills stop grinning to breathe,
I’ll sloppily open a seam in his side,
disregarding the lipless gasp that escapes
and the sudden perk of his fins as my blade glides
coarsely through muscle and scales. I’ll scrape
and pluck the oily tubes in his belly and try to ignore
the weight of his eye – that marble, all veneration and trust,
that was blind to the hooks in the water before.
Now, blind to my guilt, my rigid disgust,
he’ll curse my hands in wordless speech:
You son-of-a-bitch, you tricked me

And, in the spirit of the recent blizzard I give you:

New England Winters
Every winter, the farmers flooded the bogs.
None of us knew why, but when the early-morning frost
made the water a mirror thick enough to
skate on, the mystery was lost.

Dad told the story of a boy who’d
slid ‘cross the Charles in a Styrofoam cooler back when
he was a kid. There was a a creak – forboding – and the ice opened
like jaws full of black water and swallowed the boy
before he made it to the other bank.
A fisherman found his mittens that spring.

But there was no caution in us. With every press of
a skate, we dared the bogs to open, to pull
us down to where the cranberries lay
dormant and purple, and make fables of us too.

And our challenge was met with no more
than scraped palms and knee bruises.

Hope you enjoyed! I'll be posting lots more.

Stay warm,
Jerry