I Rock the Ulu by Sara Backer

I Rock the Ulu

I wear gloves
to chop swordfish.
Coal burning, gold
mining, push
heavy metal
into water,
into air.
Swordfish
aren’t dying out.
Kings in the food chain,
unchained in waves,
they dance and slash
like humans.
I’ve decided
this will be the final
fish I eat. I’ll give
it one last chance
to kill me.

*

Sara Backer’s first book of poetry, Such Luck (Flowstone Press) follows two poetry chapbooks: Scavenger Hunt (dancing girl press) and Bicycle Lotus which won the 2015 Turtle Island chapbook award. She holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Art and reads for The Maine Review. Recent and forthcoming publications include Tar River Poetry, Slant, CutBank, Lake Effect, Poetry Northwest, and Kenyon Review.