"On Wanting to Tell [ ] about a Girl Eating Fish Eyes"

A couple of weeks ago, I came across this poem on the "Poem of the Day" podcast, listening to it on a road trip up to New York. It has sort of haunted me since then (perhaps I need a less dramatic word...)

As Szybist explains in the brief introduction she gives the poem in the audio clip you can find here, she wrote the poem after a friend died and--on that same night--the poet had dinner with some friends. I love the visceral grossness and energy (talk about needing another word!) of the little girl scampering around eating eyeballs--such a strange image and perfect of vibrant, youthful life and energy; this "almost feverish" bundle of youth, mercilessly gobbling up the world around her. Those last lines, too: just a knockout punch.

"On Wanting to Tell [ ] about a Girl Eating Fish Eyes"

Mary Szybist

—how her loose curls float

above each silver fish as she leans in

to pluck its eyes—

You died just hours ago.

Not suddenly, no. You'd been dying so long   

nothing looked like itself: from your window,   

fishermen swirled sequins;   

fishnets entangled the moon.

Now the dark rain   

looks like dark rain. Only the wine   

shimmers with candlelight. I refill the glasses

and we raise a toast to you   

as so and so's daughter—elfin, jittery as a sparrow—

slides into another lap   

to eat another pair of slippery eyes   

with her soft fingers, fingers rosier each time,   

for being chewed a little.

If only I could go to you, revive you.

You must be a little alive still.   

I'd like to put this girl in your lap.

She's almost feverishly warm and she weighs   

hardly anything. I want to show you how   

she relishes each eye, to show you

her greed for them.   

She is placing one on her tongue,

bright as a polished coin—   

What do they taste like? I ask.

Twisting in my lap, she leans back

sleepily. They taste like eyes, she says.