I once
caught a puffer fish
With jowls
like a toad.
I wanted to
let it go
I wanted to
set it free,
Free to swim
away to the depths of where it came from
To meet
another puffer fish and have puffy puffer babies
(If that’s
what puffer fish like to do)
But they all
said no: So hideous it must die
No one wants
a puffer fish reproducing.
So it hung
there gasping at the end of life’s cruel rod,
And no one
deigned to even touch it
So I dug my scaly
heels into the firm wet sand,
Curled my fins against silicone particles of resistance
Until the
fish dropped frenziedly from the hook
Its body bruised beautifully; a savage mouth
That might have called for help if it didn't remain so silent"
A hostile, black fuck you from the puffer fish
As the
waves they came and picked it up
To carry it
some way, temporarily aloft but bereft
A lonely puffer fish, battered by the swell
With bulging
eyes ogling its tormentors on the shore.
And the ugly
puffer fish wouldn’t swim
As they all kicked
shells at it,
Threw wreathes
of seaweed around it,
Like a pyre
for a life under no circumstances to be lived.
And I stood
there urgently, calling it to swim
As its proud
body swelled and seethed in anger
Her pearlescent
scales reflected my sadness
For this
ugliness drowning in the safety of the shallow water
