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We
city dwellers exit the N train cavern
Canal St. catfish searchin
For barbecue between rains
Beneath the city’s six or seven stars.
Revelry with Bud’s champagne
We have flowers and
Charcoal brickets to glow.
By Chinatown’s fish market
Hip hoppin to a siren’s wail
Cabbie choir join cops don’t drop the beat
Harmony comin from a jail
Heavy motorcycles playin bass bassoons
Heavy Mack trucks on trumpets
Blowin by Chinatown’s fish market.
Heavy pungent hot odors greetin
Heavy traffic roarin leavin heavy fumes
Heavy diesel gas coverin
Aged markets moldy wood
People every size
Purses every tint and hue
Pushin bumpin shovin
Just to see the venue.
Turnin lights pinchin spaces
Chinatown fish market
Smells of spices, dips and old bay places
Caught in cool tiled walls hot glass tanks
Fish every shape, shimmer and size
Big hooks small men full nets
Crescendo callin “wha you wan
How much you pay
How many poun you wan?
You cally home in lucky red bag”
Brimmin to overflowin boxes
Brimmin crates clams glacier gray
Cane baskets perch loadin.
Twenty gallons plastic containers
Brimmin in brown green friendly frogs
Staring with curious worry
Answered in shoppers eyes.
Large ice trays lyin on frozen sidewalk shore
Trays holdin ensnared shrimp pink,
gray, brown blue and white
Small medium large trapped giants
Bushel baskets captured blue crabs
Laced in dirty seaweed fringes
Climbin desperate crawdads lobsters screamin
Claws bound in bright blue bands
Attemptin a return to sandy bottom seas.
Larger than Bangkok street dogs
Catfish gleam sliver blue iron
Muscles in holdin tanks.
Thick gray noiseless bodies
Big Atlantic black eyes bulge
Mouths gape Mack the knife
Facing sinful decapitation
Suddenly a big slappin tail strikin
Burstin waters makin waves
Circles foamin swallow
Circles on circles on circles.
Street side shop wide open white cave
Crawlin with restaurant chefs
Biddin makin choices yellin
Lunch and fancy dinner menus fillin
Tourists based behind Canons Nikons
Pentax and Olympia single lens
Vying for a winnin shot.
Chinese housewives clamorin
For cinched coins battlin buttin
Bigger boast wantin
Workers bustle.
Illegals slave off Hong Kong boats
Illegals needin space needin a small hustle
Illegal lookin for golden mountain
Of Americans ignorance sing
“Buy best fish hele
How much you pay
Flesh fish best balgain”
In Chinatown fish market
Parade passin gawkin
“How much you pay”
Fresh fish best bargain hawkin
Lobster $28 a pound
“Clara, ca mere. Looky er ’re live.”
Market owners and sons cousins
Freaks and fellow gamblers
Stalk watery aisles watchin
Sick or wounded push sell quick
“Best flesh fish in Chinatown
Only best How much you pay
Molning catch vely cheap
You get flesh fish hele in malket.
How many pound you wan”
We city skins stand
Amazed at sights and smells
Tourists call “Just Look at da size.
Ya could feed a whole army
Why it’s big as ma’s leg
Ere would ya Take ma picture.
Did ya get da fish?”
We urbanites witness
Heavy foamy filled water tanks
Heavy like plastic caskets
Suds like laundry’s second rinse runnin.
We in awe watchin might in motion
Fins makin bubbles and spitty waves
A big strong catfish watchin back
We want “That one
Like size of a kindergarten kid”
The fishmonger wants a real quick sale
Struggles to lift its weight
Like a pony on painted carousel
Hooks the great mouth
A twisted spring tail flappin
Flash flyin from hook and hands
A champion thoroughbred leapin
Quits the scale screams splinterin swingin
Fins faster than tourists shutters
Cuttin plungin though clamor gapin
Nikon, Canon and Pentex holders
Collidin over TWENTY GALLONS
Live brown green commando frogs
In three hundred and sixty degrees
Glee spread on long long long leapin legs
Catfish Champion slappin tail beatin fins
Bound for distance shores
Canal street blue black tar tide.
Customers, sellers and tourists
All move in merry mob reactions
Carny like fishmongers yellin cursin
Heavy tourists’ cameras tumult snappin
Heavy children cheerin shrieking yappin
Go Go Go Go GO GO.
Sellers grabbin panic, sliden
Heavy fallin on wet red tile floors
Heavy holdin empty air
All stand in wonder at the sudden strength
Of natures great gray body
Heavy strugglin heavy fightin
Concrete, glass and no water
The great mouth fish swims in mutiny
Mid dirty tiles dirty concrete dirty feet
Beneath between steamin legs
Some stand frozen
Like bronzed park statues
Some mouths dropped open eyes wide
Some dressed in fear unable to think
Some unable to move.
We city dwellin revelers defer
Oh well really Roasted corn will do
We ransom a freedom fighter on her way
Barred from escape by grated iron bedlam
Deservin rights to mighty reproductions.
Bubblin beer and white wine
Could never wash away the sight
Of eyes lookin back inside the soul
Before such valiant leap
Searchin for lake river or sea
We city dwellers hurry her.
Instruct her, “Just follow the Hudson
Go before you look too good.
And next time when offered a fancy line
Turn tail swim fast or learn to run.”
Under foggy New York’s night star
We lift a bottle
Drink a cheer.
“To efforts, all
Mighty and small.
To freedom. Ho”
Pena Bonita, Apache, lives and writes
in New York City.
Image by Patrick Tafoya
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