The speaker begins by looking down at a tuna lying next to various vegetables for sale, and noting that what was once a powerful, missile-like animal is now dead. The vegetables around the fish are all taken from the earth, the speaker observes, and the fish is unique for having a knowledge of the ocean—the unknown abyss. The speaker imagines the tuna making its way through the water: strong, powerful, and purposeful like a bullet. He imagines it wounded but nevertheless continuing through the current. The speaker continues to compare the tuna to weapons: an arrow, a harpoon, a javelin.
The speaker tells the fish that it was once important in various ways. It was like a king of the ocean, it was as lively as a fir tree, and it was a seed within the ocean's dramas, from tidal waves to sea-quakes. Now, though dead, it maintains a certain sense of purpose and direction that the vegetables around it lack. Shiny and angled like a grand ship in the sea, the fish now steers, not through the waters of the ocean, but through death.
