I am Fish- Reading

I am Fish.
I remember happy fish days;
swimming through coral country sides
turning weightless in crossing currents.
-When I was a small fry,
no bigger than a tadpole
on the banks of a steady trickling stream,
my brothers and sisters in fins
told strange tales of monsters above
the water line,
big fingered brutes which carried
sharp hooks to pierce our throats
and sharp knives to slice our bellies.
We jump at every shadow still.

This, my fish life, flashes before my fish eyes
as all of my pond dreams
pop like brook bubbles,
tentative and precious.

I am Fish,
and I am beached, askance,
and my body is heavy.
I feel the weight of a fin
is the same as a boulder
and my bits above me crush down
on my bits below,
and out of the glaring bulb light
rises, silhouetted, a great monster form.

I have nothing left, suddenly.
I gasp for water, marooned on this
forsaken land mass.
I sputter. I wheeze.
My vision goes blurry,
my head feels spinning,
and there looms the monster.
In this terrible moment of hope,
I know, for just this moment, exactly what and who I am.

I am Fish.





















Written Massachusettes 2012, Photo Colorado 2010