The Delicacy

By Sandra McPherson b. 1943 Sandra McPherson

for M.H.

Friend, remember how you showed us beasts love beauty?

We were wading in your lake with bluegills and you said,

Be careful, you will lose your beauty marks

To their little jaws. We were a delicacy. From us they purchased

The darkest part of the skin, only what contrasts on us.

And it was more than a pinch or sting,

It’s a sensation of hunger

That makes us spring off the bottom and swim out deep

And safe. “No blue stripes on cheeks; no red on fins;

Old individual’s belly coppery red or brassy.”

As others see you, I think these indicate,

Who would have you all one shade then wouldn’t have you.

At your full table later, over muskellunge and lemon,

We read in the book the fish that liked us

Has certain maxillaries “wholly wanting.” Your gourmet bluegill:

It lives in the eye of the beholder, it swims the vitreous

Humor, would eat even your blind spot!

But we think we can paddle out there until all

Goes dark, and we are wholly desirable, and too much.

Source: Patron Happiness (Ecco Press, 1983)

Biography

Sandra McPherson weaves vivid images culled from nature into what Contemporary Women Poets contributor David Young characterizes as "rich, complex, and deeply satisfying poems." In collections that include the National Book Award-nominated The Year of Our Birth, 1988's At the Grave of Hazel Hall, and 1996's Edge Effect: Trails and Portrayals, McPherson has increasingly honed her unsentimental, insightful verse, imbuing it with . . .

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