lost in a sadness of gold,
our fish killed herself in the night –
swimming up the bubbler jamming her body
in the tube, hose to the car exhaust
of deadly oxygen, engine running
toodle-loo goeth before the fall –
she’d tried it before, I’d rescued her
over and over what sorrows
went unseen in the bright mirror
she’d finned and scaled for us
water the unbearable clarity
of loneliness –
no company but the ennui of snails
and the alien deep-sea diver
unspeaking as a statue
the children came down to breakfast
and gathered round a bier of Kleenex
her wet outline the Shroud of Turin –
a Jesus-fish relic too sacred
to flush
its been years; I’ve been remiss
doesn’t everyone deserve
a proper suicide note –
do the same for me as I would for you
if it ever comes to that
For The Sunday Muse
qbit 
Alas, poor Toodle-loo! Seems she had a proper burial …. and an eloquent suicide note. Hopefully there are no bubblers in koi heaven!
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Hahaha! Thanks!
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Oh so sad. I can feel her lonely swim, maybe she was seeking a tributary to larger waters. Smiles.
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Oh so sad. I can feel her lonely swim, maybe she was seeking a tributary to larger waters. Smiles.
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Yes. Return to the sea.
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Toodle-loo was persistent and had bigger seas flowing in mind. Two great poems for the Muse this week! You’re on a roll Qbit!!
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LOL! Thanks!
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Of course we shouldn’t smile in the face of fish suicide … but I smiled through the end of your poem. Hope that doesn’t make me sound ghoulish.
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Not at all!!!
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I enjoyed this poem.
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Thank you!!
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This took a different turn. Very sad…and indeed…a loneliness to the situation one is in.
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Brilliant! You should hire out to do that note writing.
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LOL, Thanks!
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You should start a fish obituary….When the fins grow weak, don’t put me in front of the neighbor’s window. She dances in the nude and I get exhausted trying to swim her out of my view. 🙂
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Ahahahahaha!
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I don’t know, find this very sad. Yes, you’re talking about a pet fish–and I love the “sadness of gold”–but how many people live circumscribed lives, barely seen by those around them the figurative snails and mute divers. How much loneliness can someone take before they can’t cope anymore? The idea of someone writing their note after the fact is surprising, bittersweet, and terribly sad. How many Jesus-fish are out there, those we say we love or care about but who aren’t really seen or included? Gosh I just find this poem brilliantly blue.
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Ah, I did not mean for this to trivialize suicide. Thank you for looking past my flip language and seeing something more sad. I had hoped to hit that note by indirection at least by the end, always difficult to avoid falling into bathos. Of course, I wouldn’t write an equivalent poem about my dog or a human friend dying of cancer. Contemplating all of this.
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I know. Your intent was clearly lighter than my take. But that’s what it said to me. Sort of Eleanor Rigby. Really enjoyed the poem, though, and glad you gave me a the heads up on it!
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Love the cleverness of this poem, q. She needed her space but just didn’t knowhow to express it.
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