colander poem 

i want to know what is seeping through
& where it is going. i wash the fish 
in the steel colander. they shrink to the size
of grains of rice to slip away. breathing again.
deadly water. aa secret ocean they have
been hiding from us down the drain. 
the fish arrive at a different planet
to be eaten by more grateful gods.
there is this edgar allen poe poem 
about sand spilling from between your fingers
& it's kind of cliche now but it never
stops being true. i'm sick of tracking cliches.
i want to talk about a big fat sunset. 
the fish were not fish they were television remotes. 
my lover says i ask too many questions that aren't
actually questions. i keep my organs
preemptively in canopic jars
just in case i happen to need an afterlife.
i've been happier since i decided
it was better to be the sieve than 
what is lost. i don't know if this is
authentic though. i think i am much more
akin to what is lost than what facilitates 
the losing. you could look at it another way 
i guess & then i am a vessel for remnants.
broken clocks & portraits of families 
that are not mine. 
the television is gone. is being used 
as a dinner table. i lived in an apartment
at one time without a single chair.
i laid on the floor. ate with my hands. 
it was great to be alone. i guess if
it comes down to it, i can spill enough rice
to make a fish. take a video of it
& send it to everyone in the world. 
they will be so happy that they 
will make me briefly famous. i will
win a made-up award for what i caught.
we will still have not had dinner. 
a clock will stop working but we'll 
keep using it. at least we'll be right twice a day.