Coming Home by Alice Richmond

A man fishes.
He's come back to his home town after
more than forty years of out—
striving in other cities.

It'll take twenty more before
the natives re‐assimilate him.
It's like that here.

The mackerel are running,
chasing crowds of food into tiny harbors.
The water between the lobster boats roils with
strainings toward deliverance and sustenance,
respectively.

He hides his tenderness behind
the made‐up face of The Stoic.
He's all boy when he fishes.

His garden and continual push toward
hope and grow and possible
reflect a man who has dug deep,
though sometimes I think
he misses the jewels in the soil.

He paints, too.

His collar is soaked with
late October rain.
Though it's cloudy his eyes shine stars.
"13 in 15 minutes!
The two fellows next to me pulled
200 pounds in less than an hour!
The mackerel haven't come in like this since
I was a boy!"

Still, he threatened to make me clean my own,
Feigning full‐on CEO mode.

Relented, called and told me
he'd filleted them and
if I wanted some I could just swing by.

I'll place them in the broiler pan and
mound them with herbs.
Then, I'll take sweet fish meat in my mouth
and suck it off the bones.

The bones.
The bones.
There's marrow in the bones.
I feel surreptitiously fathered and
it's nice.