Regeneration
Bluff, bewhiskered Englishman my grandfather,
told stories of his grandfather who kept a fish;
not your gawping globe-encircled goldfish
blowing kisses through the glass –
but the down-to-earth globe-trotting kind,
given to bridging the gaps of our credulity.
Spoonful by careful spoonful
he accustomed it to air
and it accompanied my ancestor
on journeys up the Amazon
through forests thick with cannibals
and down the Euphrates on a tea tray.
But crossing the county bridge one day,
the fish slipped through a gap
– and drowned.
And my grandfather would gasp and cry
and polish up his bugle nose
with the white silk handkerchief
used for making disappearing rabbits.
But with each successive grandchild,
the fish returned
– to bridge the gap again.
(Published in Fine Line in September 1990.)
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