Fishwishing
I dawdled to school past the rich family's house
not coveting their fancy bay window with scalloped
white curtains, or the crystal glasses I could see
on a buffed silver smoking stand, not envying
their solid brick, their closely cropped lawn.
I didn’t want their riches. I wanted their fishes.
To slip unseen into the one wild thing
in their tightly-kept garden, tumble over
the threshold of their circular goldfish pond
into the world where I could drift beyond
reflection, gaze up at shifting light patterns,
write green slime thoughts on the permeable
membrane that separated me from the sight
of other lives. I’d flicker red, gold and silver
among the twisting lily stems
weightless, liminal, unbounded.
What we dream as children we seek as adults.
My grandchildren dip wishing fingers
to the depths of my fern-fringed fishpond
questing for the scrape of scale, frisson of
filmy tail. My children dive deep in the river
where they grew, gills opening and closing
still learning to be fish.
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