Despite what marine biologists say, the codfish is not all that ravenous or tough. It doesn’t devour everything that comes in its path, and it doesn’t like desolate waters any more than the next fish. For thousands of years it’s patrolled the seams between warm and cold ocean currents, and rather recently showed the Europeans the way to America. The trouble is, the codfish can’t remember a thing. It might swim to Labrador or Lofoten for twenty straight years and not recall any of it. On good days its memory lasts maybe three seconds. Say, is that a herring or a lure? When mistaken, it won’t put up a fight; it won’t even try to slip off the hook. It’s had enough and throws in the towel. Life’s just not fair. Or is it? The codfish really can’t remember.
Dag T. Straumsvåg, translated from the Norwegian
from The Lure-Maker from Posio: Prose Poems of Dag T. Straumsvåg
(Red Dragonfly Press)
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