Breathing Poetry

Written by Charli Henley
She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Her blog: Broken Mannequin

(Fish) For Liquid

I keep
my apartment too cold
to keep the
ectothermic
(fish)
alive.
I put him
in front of the heater
to delay
a neglectful death.

I have always
been tender
with the aquatic
vertebrate
animals.

I had a tank
as a girl
in which lived
a huge black thing.

He would jump out,
flop breathlessly
on the floor,
strands of my hair
sticking
to his flesh.

As if
he had the will to die
until actually confronted
with death.

Like how the jumpers who survive
say they felt
on the way down.

I would find him
dying
and dying
on the carpet
then slip his strange body
back
into its cage.

Originally published on writer's personal blog.
Posted with consent of the writer.