GOLDFISH
poem for May by Ken Siegelman, Brooklyn Poet Laureate

There was that Coney Island goldfish
Swimming in my memories;
Lapped on a crowded weakened train
Back to my apartment where nothing seemed to stay alive
For long;
Spilled into a tiny bowel,
Then pushed into a crowded corner of a room
Beyond the hesitating blades of light
Dimmed by brown venetian blinds
Where everything froze into a winter half-sleep,
Irrespective of the season of the year.
He was a prize I really didn’t
Want to win;
Trying hard for several months
To rid myself of him
When the kiss I’d gotten for winning him
Lapsed into the awkwardness of meeting her again
As she spoke only of the goldfish -
Of all the other things I flushed away
Without a second thought
Or tossed into my alleyway
He had stayed alive
As if to spite me.
This living thing I never named
And hardly even fed
Swam in circles through the years
In a bowel inside my head.