did you expect to win me 
like a carnival goldfish?

we do our best with ping pong balls
and i was your first lover
in a fist of water--
laugh at the stream--
i'm lost between the kaleidoscope
and 
the carnival--
dropped in through
the water-- i swim with
a jazz laden menagerie
of stars with broken radiance
-- a mouth
of soft pretzels and mustard--
i'm left awake from 
the pop-rock electric shock 
of another sunset in june--
we were young enough to name
each other--
what will
we make of this world together
now that everything is so dry
and we've shared in the ritual of
cheese fries--
carry me in a plastic bag
and name me with the prayer of
a ticket stub destined
to become another gold fish body-- 
tell me again the story of
how you won me that night
with a ping pong ball--
what was i to you and where
have we ended up now?
how did you introduce me to your
mother and did she love me
like you did?
i learned to walk with the
legs you assigned me that night--
a medusa of funnel cake smudged
on the walls of my zip lock
skin-- 
i had requested to be
let loose in the stream
behind the playground--
back where the carnival couldn't
wash my in light--
where the older kids carved their initials 
on the park benches--
the head of a match stick--
the smoldering comet of a cigarette--
the polychromatic kind of
sex that feels like drowning
in a fist of water--
drown with me and we'll sell
my scales as ticket stubs-- 
remove the sun from the gold
and call me a silverfish--
call me a soft pretzel mouth
or the knotted brain of 
funnel cake-- powdered sugar
to remind us to be lighter than
the outside air--
this is an exchange for staying
up past bedtime--
do you think i will learn to swim
up stream or do you think this
was only you and me and the ping
pong balls--
sometimes i like to think that you chose
me from all the others--
i like to think that you meant 
for us to live
together
from either side of a plastic bag--
i know we've come here 
so that i can go back to the stream
and next year you can carve your name with 
a match stick--
garish your legs around a lamp post--
tell me again how you won
me-- i'm peeling off each scale one
by one until i turn back into
a flick of your wrist--
the splash in a bowl-- 
i'll eat the neon for dinner--
shiver like another sunset
thrown carelessly that the feet of
june.