I caught a pacific blue marlin once.

         It was big, very big.
               We couldn’t even get it in the boat.
 
    The captain jumps down from the bridge 
and fits the butt of the pole into the gimbal 
attached to the chair, quickly jumps back 
up. Gripping the spotless silver wheel, he
starts the turn. We get turned and start
the chasing. I’m trying to get as much of 
that thick, dripping blue-green leash back
on the reel’s drum as fast as I can, twist the
suddenly smooth glide of this elite machine
in my hands. They are built for this moment.
 
The captain yells, You ready? Breath-ing-ly-
I-yell-, Go! And now we’re turning, and we’re,
Oh! Shit! As soon as we get three quarters
ass-backed to that fish, the rod bends double,
breaks the gimbal out of the bracket and 
I am latched to a pole with a giant reel that
 
             begins howling. The fish is stealing-line,
      it zips through the immaculate glinting eyes 
              on the thick moaning red and white rod.
 
My arms are gonna come out of their sockets,
or I’m going swimming. My dilemma now: I’m 
brass-snapped to this reel and a long thin piece
of thread tying me to the biggest thing I have 
never yet, seen in my life and then, A GRANDER!
 
Now, I will say, this fish doesn’t look at all that
big, but we know she has at least a half-mile of
line out and I am certain she just winked at me,
but maybe the light just hit her eye wrong. She!
So I scream with everything I’m not using to hang 
on to the pole, the reel, the chair and my sanity, 
You are Mine! Also, loud as I can, Chase!
 
                                   The boat begins westing toward Maui again.
 
 
 
* Editor: Jules Unsel