The Goldfish (edit 2)

[tomoffing]

Edit 2
The Goldfish

I’ve watched from the armchair opposite
and pitied him, drifting, 
buffeted by currents of his own
unknown making,
occasionally tail-flicking into the perpetual pipeline
that recycles his immutable liquid present,
but mostly staring 
through a dim ochre upside-down
shadow of himself
at a refracted, convex,
never-expanding universe.

Then one day I bumped the bowl 
and it rolled cracked and splashed
and my life flashed
in his darkening eye
as he lay
gasping
immersed in overwhelming clarity.

I saved him with a swift scoop
and a teacup drowning,
and now returned to another 
cold clouded cyclical inescapable bowl
I see him sometimes, watching me
pitifully.



Edit 1 (thanks bena, brown & esp Dale)

I watch him pitifully,
sometimes drifting
on eddies of his own
unknown making;
as flotsam jettisoned
from a child's voyage
of life and death discovery.

Occasionally, he tail-flicks
into the perpetual pipeline
that recycles him, unaware
to the immutable aqueous present.

Mostly, he stares reflective
out into the refracted, convex,
ever-expanding universe
through a dim ochre
upside-down
shadow of himself.

Once, he was rolled
by my unwitting hand,
and blind-sided, exposed,
he flapped agape and tapering,
gasping at overwhelming clarity;

But I scooped and saved him
by teacup drowning,
sieved, flipped and sluiced him
back into the cold clouded cyclical
inescapable bowl.

Now he watches me,
mercilessly.