Poetry

She lived in a bowl
on the kitchen countertop
at the end of a shaft of light
in the company of a waterwheel.

Between the frill of the rim
where the glass thickened to a lip
and the bowl's bottom, carpeted
with Perl mutter shingle,

aligned, more or less,
to cosmic north and south
yellow bead-jeweled alongside
like the windows of an airbus.

balanced in her heaven
by fins that dimly beat
mouth gulping water in as
if fueled by a rubber band.

her eyes like ebony pinheads
her inchy form striped blue--
occasionally emitting a single bubble
or grazing at the water line

she was a vertebrate all right
highly evolved and alone--
little fish, little pond, big name:
Antigone--what became of you?