Momo
when I see the smudged bowl that Momo lived in, I think of his
fins, which drifted off of his body and
broke apart like popsicles, and my fingernails,
which flake into pieces and snag on my sweater. it goes on, then, to
scars on my face and side and especially one on my
thigh, a casualty from fence-climbing into a covert
Astroturf party in Riverside park.
Momo was rushed to my uncle Bill’s aquarium hospital,
a small tank that sits beside a large glowing one, where
all the sick fish live.
I swallow to think that he slipped into the sink, once,
and I screamed OH MY GOD again again again until my
father threw him back into the bowl with his white hands.
my fish was buried in a backyard where a
golden-retriever named George once lived.
I think of Momo’s small fish bones, the ones that will stay behind
once his scales and eyes disappear into the ground, and I think
knobby knees, mine, the ones my
cousins mocked six summers ago, and of
lives so glossy, and of girls who make my
stomach hurt, and of little blue fish, whose
eyelash lips whisper kisses to no one
Copyright © Ming Fearon | Year Posted 2008
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