#NaPoWriMo2026 #Day9 #FishOutOfWater #AnimalPoem

 

                                                                     Fish Out of Water

 

I.

 

Cut from chalk

a hollow made by men whose names

were entered twice:

first as workers,

then as losses. The pond holds

their subtraction

ledger-water,

its surface calm as if calm

were ever earned.

 

II.

 

Into this receptacle 

this accidental reliquary drops

a goldfish: bright

detritus,

a domestic ember misplaced by

a reckless hand.

Its restless mouth

unthreads the silt, undoing nests

with innocent force.

 

III.

 

The reeds lean back

startled by the orange insistence

of this uninvited guest,

this glimmer

that does not know it wreaks havoc

by simply being.

Beauty, here,

is a kind of vandalism:

a flare in the wrong dark.