Fear of Fish

I feel silly, because that other thing wasn't supposed to be a poem, it just turned out looking that way. So here's a real poem, which I personally think is much better. (I like poetry because I don't have to make so much sense, which is always what I get in trouble for in my writing classes)

Actually, I'm going to post two poems, because most people like the second one more but I really like the first soooo WHAM BAM POW

Fear of Fish

Fingernails bit down to nothing

Outside a sparrow cuts through traffic

Human footprints branded onto grass and soot

She pauses to feed the fishes

Pearls of buoyancy, they coast around the birdbath

While the sparrow struggles

Scuba certified

In an aquarium sold for blow

Two men see it, stop to pay respect

To a fallen angel tattooed on her hips

She continues to masticate

Keratin aids in digestion.

The fish battle for breakfast at noon

And the sparrow drowns

Silent, invisible

Part of this holy urban landscape

*

Downstairs, her boyfriend praises the ganja

Mother takes her pill with daily bread

Father is nervous, turns off the lights,

Continues in blindness and solitude

Sister shuffles noiselessly to the bathroom

Opens the drawer and rinses her wrists

On the opposite coast, Grandmother stirs

In the graveyard, under the elm

And everyone propagates wildly.

-------------------------

Birthmark

October 31, 1927 :

A gypsy baby is born

under a Harvest Moon

She doesn’t cry

Stares curiously

at her Mother’s Painted chest

and the man

dissolving into twilight

His form mingles

with the shadow of an ash

and they are left in autumn dusk

Orange light illuminates a thumbprint

branded into her upper thigh

*

At three, Miranda is too old

to be tunneling, naked

through the damp earth

Silt crumbles

beneath tiny hands

digging through glitter, magic

Mother raises

an admonishing finger

Douses her in soap and warm water

forcing the fairies to flee

They leave only a handful of

pixie dust

on the child’s upper thigh

*

Thirteen years alone in the fields,

Her father returns

Rivers of sweat carve sticky trenches

into an unshaven grin

He gathers Miranda into his lap

in faux-familiarity

Rough hands graze

nubile breasts

Travel down to smooth

layers of gauze,

gathered at her hips

He presses her into him

Grips his baby tighter

Leaving only an open wound

with salt festering in all of the

exposed surfaces

Along her upper thigh

*

Eighteen, beautiful, and

almost untouched

Miranda follows her son

through the beeches and firs

Pauses in her favorite grove

to smell the air

So crisp, inviting

She stretches out in the brush

for afternoon solstice

The baby totters back to her

Settles among his mother’s skirts

Rests his head in

butterfly kisses

Against her upper thigh

*

Summer, 1953:

A wild woman bathes

in a lonely riverbed

She knows nothing of war, little of hatred

or danger

Understands only the coolness of liquid

against her bare skin

Yelps in surprise at a pinprick

in her upper thigh-

She removes a fishing hook

follows the line to its owner

A solider

in full fatigues and fuzzy

about the edges

offers her a hand

He gathers Miranda up and

brings her home

Healing fingers press stitches

into her upper thigh