My Goldfish Flutters

Hanging from a hook
under my heart; 
a goldfish in a bag 
from a fairground in my teens. 
If always it was there, 
and since then I learned its words, 
or it grew in response, 
I don't know. 
It makes no difference 
that hormones settled.
It pays no mind 
to victories since.

I sit here
and its tail flutters,
uncoded in my blueprints: 
the miracle balance 
of bone and muscle. 
She tells me it's a construct 
of wayward associations 
but my truth 
is my life 
and I'm here 
because I lived it. 

So take my truth 
and take my past
and leave a child. 
And I'd love to loosen 
but the handrail 
I've warmed so nicely. 
And I guess that it's true 
what they say 
about change, 
and age. 

But I'm not living enough for one 
and my orange friend makes two. 
So he flutters; 
and my world shakes.

#ScaryStoriesIn5Words

SMS: a short poem

Was that sassy?
My sassy SMS translator
was not turned on.

Streets in Cambridge

Untitled

Is not it profound how music and smell
provoke memory?
Talk unto a memory
and be ridiculous,
the past is no place to live.

It captures me and tortures me 
because those faces I cannot see,
those ears I will never have
and their company never keep. 

Regret. The paths back exist
all too vividly without form
but without function too,
it never gives in.