The Fisherman King
A man who lived alone
worked in the city. One day,
as he left the building,
he heard a kkss underfoot.
He looked down.
He’d stepped on a crisp..
He sniffed. Cheese and onion.
He ignored it
and walked on.
As he left the coffee shop
he stepped on a crisp.
Salt and vinegar.
He walked on.
As he got off the subway
an empty chip packet blew onto his face.
As he left the station, kkss,
another crisp. Prawn cocktail.
He was slow, but he got the point.
Looked around, saw a trail of potato chips
scattered in a line
like breadcrumbs in a wood.
He followed them.
He walked a long time.
Things became indistinct.
He felt watched.
Eventually he was walking through fog
with nothing but crisps to guide him.
After a long
long
time,
his crisps started making wet noises.
He was walking in blood.
It got deeper.
It stained his ankles.
He came to a rock
that was everywhere
and nowhere
and on that rock
was an enormous gull
wrapped over and over in fishing twine
with a huge sharp hook
in its bleeding wing.
The gull looked at the man
and though his beak was tangled
the man could still hear its voice.
Took your time, didn’t you?
said the gull.
A thousand invisible beaks
clacked in agreement.
It was a long way,
protested the man who lived alone.
You’re lucky it wasn’t 40 days and 40 nights
in red blood to the knee
said the gull, and laughed,
and the man was no longer certain
it hadn’t been.
Anyway, said the gull,
I’m tangled. Fix it.
Um, said the man.
All the fishermen in the world just cut their losses,
said the gull. Nets, lines, hooks.
Even I got tangled.
The man who lived alone remembered the times
he had been fishing and his lines fouled
with stones, or a pier
and he just cut them. He was uncomfortable.
With the scissors on his penknife
he began to cut twine to untangle the gull king.
When he came to the hook in the wound
he hesitated. I don’t know
how not to make this hurt, he said.
Of course you don’t, snapped the gull king.
You’re human.
The man wrenched and pulled,
pulled and wrenched
till his hands were drenched in blood.
At last the hook was out.
The gull king shivered and stretched his wings
and they were white and whole again.
Now, said the gull king,
your choice:
I can peck your eyes out
and you can go home
as blind as you were before,
or you can stay here and make sure
no one ever gets tangled again.
No one will miss you, added the gull king, casually.
It was true.
The man who lived alone
thought a while.
All the invisible gulls stared at him.
What do I do if I stay? he asked.
Cut lines. Confound nets. Destroy traps.
Cause storms. Drown fishing boats. You will be known,
said the gull king, grandly,
as The Fisherman King.
The man who lived alone
felt his eyes. He rather liked them.
I’ll stay, he said.
Immediately all the gulls took wing,
creating a storm. A pebble
hit his cheek and cracked it.
The Fisherman King climbed up on the rock
and took his seat in nowhere—
or was it anywhere—
and the gulls flew off.
Cheers, mate, cried the gull king.
We’ll bring you some chips.
And so they did.
Pushcart- and Forward-nominated Jennifer A. McGowan is a disabled poet who has also had Long Covid for over three years. Despite this, her sixth collection, How to be a Tarot Card (or a Teenager) was published by Arachne late 2022. She has won a number of competitions, and placed and been commended in many more. She’s a re-enactor, prefers the 15th century to the 21st, and lives in Oxford.