Eat, said my mother as she placed the fish on the bench

where we ate seated on old piano stools. I asked its name.

Orange roughy she said, It lives two hundred and fifty

years underwater on seamounts and in caves. I said it smelled

like muddy boots left out in the rain, old hide of silt, orange

of its scale. Eat, my mother said, It is late: I am tired, you are slow.

I saw how the fish had grown in ocean long enough to be caught

with generations—trawled to the surface—where they died

for our plate. Eat, mother said, or I will leave you to finish

it by yourself. She spilled cutlery in the sink, washed up

her plate, wiped drops from the sink’s gleaming face,

turned off all light but the bare kitchen bulb.