Originally appeared in Islandia Journal, 2022.
I visited the marina flea market
and came across the taxidermied
body of a mako shark.
It had a massive bull back
that pressed its gills out like jowls
and opened to a mouth
that could have swallowed
me whole, should I ever find
myself alone in open water.
Its owner was an old fisherman
with bad legs whose gut
swung like a pendulum
as he rose from his cash box.
I asked if he caught the mako
and he swelled with pride.
“Did you eat it?” I asked.
He replied with a question
of his own. “You know the saying
You are what you eat?”
I said yes and patiently listened
as he told me his stuffed mako
tasted of Ahi and Yellowtail and
El Dorado and maybe Wahoo
if it made it out to sea far enough
and even some lingcod thrown in
for good measure.
All of that went into this magnificent
beast frozen in formaldehyde
in a parking lot swap meet, eaten
by a fat fisherman in an ill-fitting
T-shirt drinking Coors Light
at 9:30 on a Sunday morning.
I think of this often whenever I have fish tacos.