#NaPoWriMo Entry #7: “The Fish in a Cup of His Own Making”
Today’s poem was inspired by The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister. When I say inspired, I don’t necessarily mean “inspired by the story,” though one could certainly make the argument that my cursory knowledge of this rather famous children’s book did influence the writing of the poem below. It’ll be interesting to hear what people think of what I’ve written… For the record: I am behind by three poems. No idea if I’ll catch up… Here goes: “The Fish in a Cup of His Own Making” There are no scales covering the skin of the god fish who floats downriver in a cup of his own making. His tail — a mangled twitching against the banshee howl of the wind turned hypersonic on its journey through the crags of a forgotten canyon. His mind — a quiet confusion, the pine-salt air in his lungs sustaining a body yet yearning for the deep solitude of water. Ah, but a solitude in the company of a community of confused beasts, whose shimmer-scales and whistling-furs remind the god fish of the days when he was master over all and his scales were quiet flashes in the honey flow of the Sun. The frayed snap-twig in fin, he rows towards the light — the candles of evening whisper, saying his name as the wind carries the dreams of ghosts. And in his dreams — a screech, the falcon’s jealous feather-gaze upon the multicolored shimmy shimmer of the god fish’s many scales; the grumble of the earth beasts, the tinfoil call of scaly walkers, the scruffy scrabble of the whispering ones and so many voices so the earth at once knows only one name: the god fish! the god fish! In the cup of his own making, his tears turn sour on bare flesh, glittering with dream stuff like echoes of faces in still water: hands and claws and talons ripping, pulling like unkempt wolf children at the multitude of magnified markers which the god fish dispells in salt. Oh, but the worst dream of all — the little cousins and sisters and brothers and friends who once knew the god fish by the smiles that graced their faces… Their bodies are now home to someone else’s skin. Up the river, pushing weak currents, the god fish holds his tongue against the roof of a mouth made sticky by too much trauma. Against the wet sting of his wounds his grief finds its voice in his silence.