fresh fish

While helping my friend Hari search for schezuan peppercorns, I found myself in a grocery store in Chinatown. We walked in, passing the usual sights and smells of a Chinese grocery -- dried fish, carp in tanks, freshly butchered fillet's of some massive fish I first mistake for a small pig. As we pass the fillets, Hari notes that one is still twitching. Attached to one end, something -- part of a heart? gill? -- is slowly and rhythmically opening and closing, holding still, opening and closing. I watch it for a good minute, go back to visit it while we're otherwise confounded in the spice aisle, then come back to see it off as we leave. It's slowed a bit, but it's still doing it's thing. Open, close, pause for rest, open, close, rest.


long journey,
lying down to rest,
feet still feel the road.