The Silver Fish

by Shawn Pittard

I killed a great silver fish,
cut him open with a long

thin knife. The river carried
his heart away. I took his

dead eyes home. His red flesh
sang to me on the fire I built

in my backyard. His taste
was the lost memory of my

wildness. Behind amber clouds
of cedar smoke, Orion

drew his bow. A black moon rose
from the night’s dark waters,

a sliver of its bright face
reflecting back into the universe.

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About the Author:

Shawn Pittard is a poet who lives in California.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2011 by Shawn Pittard, from his most recent book of poems, Standing in the River, Tebot Bach, 2011. Poem reprinted by permission of Shawn Pittard and the publisher.