The Fish by: Elizabeth Bishop with some minor editing

  I caught a tremendous fish 
  and held him beside the boat 
  half out of water, with my hook 
  fast in a corner of its mouth. 
  He didn’t fight, but if he had, I'd kick his ass. 
  He hadn’t fought at all. 
  He hung a grunting weight, 
  battered and venerable 
  and homely. Here and there 
  his brown skin hung in strips 
  like ancient wallpaper, 
  and its pattern of darker brown 
  was like wallpaper: Fucking pussy ass fish
  shapes like full-blown roses 
  stained and lost through age. 
  He was speckled with barnacles, 
  fine rosettes of lime, 
  and infested 
  with tiny white sea-lice, like some byatch
  and underneath two or three 
  rags of green weed hung down. 
  While his gills were breathing in 
  the terrible oxygen 
  — the frightening gills, 
  fresh and crisp with blood, 
  that can cut so badly — Like how I will cut your pussy ass if you step to me byatch
  I thought of the coarse white flesh 
  packed in like feathers, 
  the big bones and the little bones, 
  the dramatic reds and blacks 
  of his shiny entrails, 
  and the pink swim-bladder (did you piss yourself, you pussy ass byatch?)
  like a big peony. 
  I looked into his eyes 
  which were far larger than mine 
  but shallower, and yellowed, 
  the irises backed and packed 
  with tarnished tinfoil 
  seen through the lenses 
  of old scratched isinglass. 
  They shifted a little, but not 
  to return my stare. -You best not return my stare punk! I'll cap your ass
  — It was more like the tipping 
  of an object toward the light. 
  I admired his sullen face, (but not in some queer man on fish way)
  the mechanism of his jaw, 
  and then I saw 
  that from his lower lip 
  — if you could call it a lip — 
  grim, wet, and weaponlike, 
  hung five old pieces of fish-line, 
  or four and a wire leader 
  with the swivel still attached, 
  with all their five big hooks 
  grown firmly in his mouth. 
  A green line, frayed at the end 
  where he broke it, two heavier lines, 
  and a fine black thread 
  still crimped from the strain and snap 
  when it broke and he got away. 
  Like medals with their ribbons 
  frayed and wavering, 
  a five-haired beard of wisdom 
  trailing from his aching jaw. 
  I stared and stared (but not in a creepy way, yo)
  and victory filled up 
  the little rented boat, cuz I'm the baddest motherfucker in this biznoat
  from the pool of bilge 
  where oil had spread a rainbow 
  around the rusted engine 
  to the bailer rusted orange, 
  the sun-cracked thwarts, 
  the oarlocks on their strings, 
  the gunnels — until everything 
  was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow! (but not in like, a gay rainbow way, yo cuz I'm the shiznit and I fuck all the ladies)
  And I let the fish go. (cuz I'm compassionate and shit, yo)