Vanessa Y Niu

Traditional Fishing Methods along the Yellow Sea Coast

Here. I hold the fish down by its fins
while you point the cleaver, flat side down.
Our people really don’t know how to fish.
All you need is a Swedish husband to teach you.
Down goes the cleaver. One fish eye turns
upward with milk. Your eyes reflect in it.
Its blood drains into the synthetic fiber of rope,
coiled at our feet. I stay silent, look at the stern,
the ribbon dance of waves, so as to not disrespect
death. Our rudder leaves white, bubbling into
deep blue. The bleed always reaches it, so I don’t
have to look when you do it. You think I watch
for the reddening of the water as a sign of the soul
having left the body, but I feel for it. The fish never goes
slack—it tightens, as if constricted by the soul, and I
never say that when you ask me to rub your shoulders,
your back feels the same way. I never say that the last
time you asked was a decade ago, and I don’t ask where
you’ve been. Every fisherman will tell you that
when night arrives starless, when the sea becomes
the same black as the sky, and there is nothing
but the groan of water pulling and pushing against the
underbelly of the boat, you become just another fish.
Slick with oil, flapping around the deck to the
companionway, scared of what might come out
of the darkness. The same way I am scared of your
Swedish husband and how you have learned to kill.
A prolonged hammering with the blunt end of the cleaver,
instead of quick and blade-forward. It’s the right way
to do it. You’ve gone for too long without holding the sea
in your palms and now it burns, doesn’t it? Forgotten
how to swim, what it means to be alive as part
of the water and a thousand other creatures. I think
of tonight, how starlessness will swallow our boat
like a whale feeding on krill. You run the fish through
the current and watch the red ribbon into
blue.

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Vanessa Y Niu is a writer and editor from New York City. She was a runner-up for the 2024 New York State Youth Poet Laureate and her work has been recognized by the Kennedy Center, Teen Vogue, the Guggenheim, Brave New Voices and NYFW. Off the lined page, her work has been set to music in collaborations with Juilliard and Interlochen composers.