fishing

he held the fish by their lip.
scales shining in the mid-day heat.
i knew very little about
the two brothers who lived above me 
in the scarred old house.
i would watch one walk up the street
always with the day's catch 
as soon as the frost faded in late march.
he swayed as he went. we both
had similar limps. 
his walking stick was glossy.
almost amber-colored wood. 
none of us had jobs. i would 
sometimes get paid to die gloriously 
for men on the internet. the brothers would
sweep the lawyer's steps 
& from time to time, clean the gutters
of the houses on high street.
once, a neighbor asked me to help her
put plastic over all of her windows
to get them ready for winter.
i pretended to be able-bodied.
when she was out of the room,
i sat on the ladder, rubbing my leg
to relieve some of the pain. 
in the stream, all the fish 
were limping too. none of them
had jobs. instead, they feasted
on the waterlogged sun. 
i loved cash. would hide it 
all over the house. a dollar here
a dollar there. once in a parking lot
i got paid to be beautiful. he bit
a hole through my lip.
a world of hooks. i thought
of the fish in the light. their sway
& the sway of the neighbor man. 
i always liked one brother 
more than the other. i liked the one
who went fishing. the other,
had sharp eyes. he yelled once in awhile.
i never knew about what. open window.
fish in the clouds & fish getting gutted
in the sink. sometimes when i hear
footsteps above me i think they're
still there. that we're still
orbiting each other in
in a lungless mountain town.