To the white and orange koi and the long, gold god
who nipped from the top of my neighbor’s unlikely pond
her last mouthful of nutritive scum, goodbye
until your fatty doubles are happily dumped up to their weird whiskers
into your empty house. I watched you last summer
turn and turn and turn, then stop and hang motionless in the heart of water
like ripe apples, then drop away noiselessly. I gave a thought to you in February
when the water wore thick ice like a proud collar of cream.
Were you holding out under there like half a dozen Saint Jeromes?
When it came time to know your expensive bodies had simply evaporated
I kept silent the secret of my regret, whispering its Latin
into my wine cup. In dreams your glittering flesh cut my cheeks
and by day you rose off tattooed arms like wet bandanas, snapping
and cracking in the light. Where were you, really? Who unwatered
your colors and took you inside, improvised an efficient disposal?
To my friends who haven’t witnessed koi in their beauty and prehistoric dumbness,
come to my balcony and look over its edge when my neighbors
return their garden to the fish. You’ll see how they laze and wonder
at your own life, then brush off the reverie, as if
when you peer into that empty brown water you’re seeking
a friend’s neighbor’s fish.