—with lines by Christian Wiman and Miho Nonaka
All I could think about
was that Christian Wiman poem
which names the Shedd and
ends with And you held my hand.
You held my hand, and in aquatic
light, I found the jellyfish
no longer my favorite. All frightening
illumination. Amidst water, I was
dehydrated, which made me melancholy.
I longed to become a jellyfish,
wrote the poet who taught me language
is glass: containing damage,
magnifying small things. I, too, longed
once for every organ to be visible.
Then the rock moved and was an eel,
craggy as God’s brow. You met
its gaze and almost wept—
it saw me. What I know of myself
is of little importance here. And
the octopus curdled like a broken heart.
At twenty, I vowed to write more poems
with fish. I tossed my voice
like a coin into pools and ponds.
A fish is like a poem is like a prayer,
I might have said, years ago. See it
move. See it tell you how to see.
Years ago, when my beloved had a vision,
it was of a catfish flashing in the night.
Its scales, surfacing, a scroll. It spelled out
a signal I am still learning how to lose.
