A poem

HISTORY LESSON

by Claudia Emerson

Fish, flesh and sweetmeats are forbidden her; she must live upon rice and ghee.

They have been half-listening to a lecture
on the Great Depression when the teacher

looks up, begins to talk about the president
and trout fishing — a digression, he admits,

that will not be on the test. Hoover would
catch too many trout to eat and so had

a small, cement pool constructed where he’d keep
the fish for days, calmly reading at the edge

of the water, absentmindedly handfeeding
them beef hearts brought in from Washington

as though to tame them. Later, the girls
can think of nothing else, circling the goldfish

pond, throwing bits of a dinner roll onto the surface,
the fish rising to them through water so still

their slow refusal to school is its only motion.


***I love this poem for the three spare portraits she creates, president, girls, teacher...and trout for you Gita! Not quite catch and release...