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| Hunts algae on glass, a sludge-sucker of garbage from the tank bottom where it lies, stony eyed, stupid, sublime, getting thick on koi sticks, its sickle tail and fan dorsal winged out, trudging in fish feces that makes the food it eats. I will not look at the sun but love the flesh. I want the whole bottle of Benedictine to bathe my throat; I love stretching in silk sheets, to taste the thick obesity of cream. Mozart's delight is the wind of feather-flight, the swing of a woman's stride, how her long hair falls from around her shoulders to softly brush the Brahms of my arm. Some have said the flesh is a snare but I know how sweet the winter day is when the warm air makes mist and thin cloud that I can watch the sun through. Then I may stare into it's Great Light to see the face of glory without harm. This star burns for me, thanks to my mist, the flesh that admits the sight of the sun! So Plecostomus, this ugly algae eater, is my companion, linked with me to the Living that I have seen only because of clouds and mist. We are water soaked, earth and sky-loving, both, kin of vapor and light. Praise these screens: words and drink meat and music, that to my fish eye brings at once both earthy and heavenly things. |
January, 1998
Steven Fortney
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