No Catch
Fish (Still Life), Édouard Manet, 1864. Art Institute of Chicago,
Mr. and Mrs. Lewis Larned Coburn Memorial Collection.
Previous inhabitants of this North Sea
neuk — Highlanders before me —
took quotidian care to use up every part
of their animals: unmeaty bits, too,
all grizzle and ruffage and gleam
swirled with meal and blood, then
sack-stuffed for boiling and boiling,
until the haggis, steaming, was ready
for its neaps and tatties and whisky…
and address from our (over)lauded bard.
It’s this thrift I reach for now –
croftless, city-dwelling vegetarian.
The grey sea I can see from my hill top
door-step is, I hope, teeming with the fish I
no longer eat. But every Tuesday at noon,
my Dad cycles to the fishmonger’s van, village-end.
And every Tuesday at noon they talk
about the catch, before Dad returns with
pocketed parcels of their favourites:
mackerel, trout, the tide’s offerings.
There’s a snug circularity to this
transaction, that I admire and crave:
net to plate, with money passing from
eater back to fisher — no middle man,
no supermarket plastic, no catch.
Under my city sink, I take to cleanly
gathering scraps for the new compost bin,
convincing myself it won’t smell.
Blessedly, it doesn’t. But, still,
I need more meaningful threads
to tie me to this earth – this land,
where capital city rent beholds me to
the blue-grey stonescape. And so, for
what it’s worth, I set my hands to work:
strain oats for milk, their silky silt running cream.