Fish
For the fish,
things are upside-down.
The drowning world is up above.
She falls in love with the fisherman,
hooks herself to his line, not because
of the pathetic little maggot dangling from its end,
but to pull the connection tight, like children
with paper cups on strings, or like new couples
holding each other close by belt hooks and dress-ribbons.
In turn, he finds himself suddenly wondering
of life through a fish eye-lens, of what sense
becomes when flowing through glass;
of the passage of all reality, through the gills –
of how they distill possibility from it;
of love and levity in liquid gravity;
and how she’s no more heavy, nor more light
than the weightlessness of her world.
He keeps his line steady. Still, she keeps it tight.
She won’t pull him under, nor will he draw her up
to burn: spontaneous internal combustion in the undiluted air.
Their love is not in the catching and consumption of each other;
It’s in their recognition of their differences,
of the drowning boundary between them,
of where they will go, how they will flow
through their lives, into places where the other can’t follow.
He keeps his line steady. Still, she keeps it tight,
a wire, piercing the skin of twin atmospheres.
He keeps his line steady. He’ll cut it, soon. Soon.
From his place on the earth, he stares up at the clouds.
From under the surface, she swallows the moon.
copyright: ©Tony Keeton 2009
