The Fish Summary

The speaker describes catching a fish and examining it from inside her boat. The fishing hook remains stuck in the animal's mouth. The fish doesn't fight back. He is heavy, tough-looking, and ugly. He has brown skin that seems to hang loose in places, like peeling wallpaper, with spots of darker brown that also look like old, faded wallpaper patterned with roses. He's covered in all kinds of creatures and residue—barnacles, lime, sea-lice, and seaweed. He breathes in air, dangerous to him, with gills that frighten the speaker: they are sharp and bloodied. She thinks about his insides: white feathery flesh, bones, organs, and a swim-bladder. The speaker looks at the fish's eyes, which are big but shallow-looking and metallic as if made of tinfoil, or else as if looked at through a translucent surface. Though the fish's eyes move, it's not so much to make eye contact with the speaker as it is to passively shift in the direction of light. The speaker takes a closer look at the fish's jaw and sees that he has been caught before. His lip contains the remnants of several hooks, some of them trailing fishing line—one of which is broken from when the fish managed to escape. They look like medals, or like a wise man's beard. As the speaker stares, the humble rental boat seems to fill with an atmosphere of triumph. Everything from the puddle of spilled oil on the floor to the rusty engine is suffused with a rainbow glow, and the speaker releases the fish.