Now put that worm on your hook,
throw it out and wait.
She sat spitting tobacco juice
into a coffee cup.
Hunkered down when she felt the bite,
jerked the pole straight up
reeling and tugging hard at the fish
that wriggled and tried to fight back.
A flounder, she said, and you can tell
'cause one of its sides is black.
The other side is white, she said.
It landed with a thump.
I stood there watching that fish flip-flop,
switch sides with every jump.
This poem is named after the flounder, a typically black and white spotted fish. These two lines at the end are significant for this poem because although it seems the narrator is simply talking about the fish, it has a double meaning. The girl notices that one side of the fish is black while the other is white. As the fish flip-flops it changes from one side to the other, white then black. It is symbolic of the struggle of the girl being of a mixed race (“You ‘bout as white as your dad” line 3). She struggles with a strong identity in either race because she does not want to pick one particular side.
Flounder