Later,
when the skies
were wet with stars,
I met a fish
who knew not
where to swim.

I had crawled
to witness the hour
when dew creeps up
promise-keeping grass.
But then, softly, I smelled water.

There was night, and
only elements awake.
If only there existed
a place where no creatures lived
and only sand and water
and darkness breathed.

While thinking of escaping you
(and all your humankind)
I heard water
and could no tell whether
it rippled above or below me,
or elsewhere.

Then the fish came
to be by me,
in the grass that had yet dew,
and he could not tell either
where the water was.

And we could not tell each other.
And we didn't try.

You would never understand.
Together
but not together.
He was there.
I was there.
Leagues of darkness separated;
other worlds did not exist,
and at that time, I was glad.

We swam,
or wished to swim,
or did we swim?
Yet I escaped

your claws.
Thank you.
You gripped me hard
and pulled me out of
that sodden world,
in which I was never truly submerged.

(You chose it as your kingdom
only since you don't live in it.
You can attempt your meal again
from another hopeless;
try from part of the crowd.)

But once free
of that dank, drunk world,
I slipped from you
unharmed.
My Purpose.
You will never sling back
to shining waters
bones and scales
and remnants you do no want of me.
I left you whole.

I left you whole.
I wanted nothing from you.
To me you are
nothing, but an opener
for my eye.

An eye you tried to scratch
escaped to see
in this new dark world
none of the boring
commonplace mediocre.

I'm glad not to say goodbye
to you who
would walk past hope of
a place not so plain.

I leave.
It's behind,
gone; I am for the new,
free to find a world worthy for me-
a culture where I fit.
I will find
a world I belong
that is nothing of the old.

If I have to learn
to swim with this fish
through stars,
I will.
It can't be that hard
to fly.
As long as not in water.
We are out of water.
No more.

No more strings,
brown package paper,
or sticky suffocation
by mothballs
found affixed to clothes
that were once everyday
and linger.

I will find
a world I belong
that is nothing of old.
Fish, lead me.

The fish is gone.