Mercy for our gasping gills-
We’re disowned by the rain, In vain
Fat man,
Sprinkle some love into our mucked fins
Just a little lick of liquid life
Our younglings dried for the flies
And our scales turn opaque –
As we are baked in mud we commune in death
Mercy for our gasping gills
Strike the broken ground for spring to flow,
In puddles of death, free us.
The sky has cursed our ponds to dry
Please don’t curse us too
If you will take our forms for food
We’re glad to offer you
Just let us breathe
In water clean
For an hour or two,
Poor fish,
Meshed in blackening pond weeds,
I cannot take you as my food,
Your septic flesh is searing now
I’ll be dead before I chew
Your sick fins chucked some stinky muck onto my lips
Your brood lay drying closing to dying
As I held you in the under the sun.
Your jady color disappears
But fish,
I tell you this –
More cursed than you know.
This heaping fat is sucking dry my heart and inner core
I’ve not shown love,
Not even to my own,
I’ve been to hopeless wars
And did my time
Burying bodies during storms.