Goldfish

Because they're cheap, convenient,
and tough enough to last for days
in a cup of stagnant tap water
sprinkled with a few flakes of food,

we love them. Even their disposal
after death is easy, the way,
in their hearses of flushed toilets,
they drift to their interment

in the sewer. We say they're gold
though they're usually yellow
or orange. Perhaps we love most
the way their flowing fins and tails

belie their homely status as carp,
the way, in flashes of brilliance,
they tinsel our terrible darkness,
lustering the shadows of our skulls.



© by Larry Thomas

http://www.valpo.edu/english/vpr/thomasgoldfish.html