Fish Fingers

“manu span 2” - Amanda Yskamp

In between the valley of the gorge, the sound of the Taughannock covers the road’s dull hum, each car a rushing crunch of rubber on gravel. Here, it is just a world of rock

and liquid. My ankles crack as I crouch to photograph a fish meandering through the shallow river. Their body is a slim pinky—their shadow just another fingery twin. Tiny fins branch from their sides like overgrown cuticles. I adjust the camera’s focus and there’s a bite

of pain. I touch the Pikachu bandaid wrapped around my index where, last week, New Year’s Eve, I tried to help you make dinner by slicing open half my nail, painting the bruschetta with a dash of my own seasoning. Already drunk, I barely felt the bubbling hydrogen peroxide as you rinsed my finger with as much care as you would wash the spinach we’d eat later, with as much tenderness as you, unlike me

hold every knife like it’s a body, like at any moment the handle could slip from your hand as quickly as this slate fish slips from sight at the click of the shutter.

About the Author

Eli V. Rahm is a queer writer from Virginia. They are the author of the chapbook Sudden Queer Birth Syndrome (Bottlecap Press, 2025) and their work is featured in Sugar House Review, Passages North, Puerto del Sol, and The Academy of American Poets, among others. They also have a cat named Bagel.

About the Artist

Writer and collage artist, Amanda Yskamp’s work has been published in such magazines as Threepenny Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, The Georgia Review, Boxcar Review, Rattapallax, and Caketrain. She is a poetry editor and frequent cover artist for WordRunner E-Chapbooks. She lives on the 10-year flood plain of the Russian River, teaching writing from her online classroom.