In a fishbowl called The Open Sea
tuna circle a somber shark. In the
cloudy gyre of again and again, a
never dismissed school swirls. A
vacationing family poses, four kids
tired and bored and annoyed and
fighting and hitting and pulling and
kicking and yelling and crying and
whining and spitting and chewing and
running and screaming and pinching. I
watch a father stare down the blue,
before he is swept into the next
voiceover where he will certainly
lose repeatedly his trolling children.
I wonder if fish fear being nothing
more than they are right now. Do
they even know where the bowl’s
edge meets the water’s end? I
follow them into the next current
mindful that I, too, must swim.
