Neon Tetras and Silvery Angel Fish

Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem

The boy’s aquarium was more to him

Than foreign fish in fervent movement through

Mere water.  Not an eerie, swirling hymn,

An alien chorale of neon blue

And nearly scarlet, not quite alien

Since squids and octopi were not in sight,

The silent notes, Episcopalian

In holiness, swam round more like the sleight

Of magic, transubstantiation’s trick

To turn Christ’s bread and wine to flesh and blood,

The melodies entwined together, slick

And lovely sent a thrill through veins, a thud.

  The fighting fish, the Siamese ones, dared

    The others, by predestination spared.