the ritual of a goldfish funeral &
brief moments engaging in flight

i want to get goldfish bowl
lost with you again
-- look at your face 
through the thick warp of glass
& witness the small moments in
in which you achieved flight--
you dive off the arm of the sofa
into the pile of couch cushions
sprawled on the living room floor--
we live with the curtains drawn
& the brown fan clicking--
we play a Beatles cd in my 
boom-box-- the one with a green
apple fresh enough to eat
off the cover of the album--
our fish died again & we 
play to ignore 
the corpse for hours--
our family is not one 
for fish funerals--
there is no reverence in a toilet
& besides our father 
is our coroner
so it's best not to dwell
too long on the limp body--
still you & i cannot help
but wander back to
your room to stare-- there is
something so sorry about stillness--
in the patient dance of
a un-animated fin-- oscillating
in the tank from the 
hum of the filter--
the fish's eyes peer
open & without purpose--
our pet remains 
looking across the tank wall
to the fleshy faces of you &
me-- i want to scoop it
out with the green net so that it
will stop looking at us &
you tell me over & over
that that's dad's job--
i removed the lid from the tank
& the filter sputters--
i ladle the motionless
body of the fish whose
name
changed every morning with the 
whim of it's young parents--
a brother & a sister
& the god who lives in warped
goldfish bowl glass--
we walk into the bathroom
& the walls sing the kind
of chorus only the children
still hear--
it's the elegies of
the collective of goldfish
who sing their brother
into the pipes--
around us float
all his incantations--
fans of fin & silk scarf
tails-- you don't believe
me when i tell you the
mirrors
are water-- we dip in
our green nets & find feathery
skeletons & frog legs
folded like cloths pins--
the door locks & becomes the wall
of a fish bowl-- our faces
bent & bug-eyed we look through 
to see pink fingers
on the glass--
flakes of fish food fall 
like something between
snow & leaves in december--
we eat them with gaping lips
off the tile floor--
we run a bath-- force our
heads
under the surface in 
the tub to breathe while 
the room
slowly fills to the ceiling--
but you remind me
that we are creatures of
flight-- turn the door knob--
pouring water all
over the carpet-- we escape the bathroom
& you follow me down the stairs--
we return to our practice of
flight & don't say a word about
the eyes of dead fish or
the way we both watched 
each other become aquatic 
even if only in the brevity
of a mirror--