Sashimi

I was buzzed on sake when that marbled hunk of otoro 

slipped from my chopsticks leaving tamari Rorschach on my tee.

“Diablo Rojo!” I bellowed, pulling my shirt flat, my friend, Victoria, 

third Sapporo, slapping the table, “You a sea witch, bitch!”

The stone-jawed itamae glanced at us from behind a cooler 

of slick flesh, gluten-free white ladies interpreting tamari blot,

then nodded to a waitress who brought two forks, an unctuous smile. 

Back home, warm with sake, I called you.

You don’t eat sashimi, you reminded me, you prefer flash-fried oysters,

Kewpie mayo, rolls with cream cheese and cuke. 

Tuna belly makes you gag, you claim, and daikon is gross

- somehow both bitter and sweet - your metal spoon clanking

against your favorite glass, vintage Burger King Skywalker,

and your first love, Leia - your preferred nightcap, chocolate milk,

your boyishness beseeching the pink suckers lining my groin.

Sweet dreams, baby, you say, but not tonight.

*

Fish flesh is unlike other flesh. 

It’s tender, easily stressed. 

The way it dies matters.

Done right,

spiked through the brain, 

a thin wire threaded

through the spine,

it shimmies, rigor-mortis slows,

and later, otoro,

soft belly streaked with fat, 

melts sweetly on the tongue.

*

Alone in bed, I dreamt 

I was an underwater pop star, 

a Humboldt squid

unfurling into song, 

purpled pains

and fleshy joys 

undulating

through shafts of sun, 

when a lone bluefin

breaks from the shoal,

pupils edged silver

with devotion.

My tentacles are barbed,

baby, suckers toothed,

keratin beak a cold spike 

through the brain.

Come to me, and I’ll do you right, 

squeeze you tight until you shimmy 

into a ravening dark,

soft belly sweet on the tongue.