“Mink Pond,” watercolor, by Winslow Homer, 1891.
The Gods promised me power and a goldfish
in a plastic bag. They said, “Just behave
like people on television and no one gets hurt.”
Then They showed me a painting of lighting,
another of a golden carp, “These will be yours,”
they said.
My mother had already lost her sight
by then, so I had to describe the pictures to her,
had to hold her fingers steady so she could trace
the fish’s cold tail. “It feels like a mirror,”
she said, “like the king in a deck of cards.”
“That’s power,” I answered, “It’s the Spanish
coin you find inside every horse.” The Gods
laughed when I said this, but my mother never
learned to listen. It wasn’t quite as awkward
as it might’ve been. She thought it was her
nature program—she loves any show about wild
dogs. Any time Attenborough says things
like “The struggle never ends” or “Innocence
is worthless,” or “Every bastard watching this
deserves to be eaten in front of their children,”
she nods and claps her hands. I wish we knew
which Gods were on duty, wish they’d hang
a schedule on the sun, but they’re so old
and thunder is confusing, so many passwords,
you really can’t blame them. I’ve started
smoking again to make the stillness pay. Some
days, I swear I can feel the poison moving
at the cellular level. How I love green.
I love when the dingoes attack and my eyeless
mother leans forward. She once taught me
to ‘French inhale,’ to blow smoke rings three
at a time. “I pretend they’re halos,” she said,
“for bad angels.” I need to drink more water.
How much would it take for me to become
a storm? Would the cost in flesh return to me
as sweet catastrophe? When I get my goldfish,
I’ll teach it to live in the cups I drink from.
Brendan Constantine is a poet based in Los Angeles. His work has appeared in many standards including Poetry, The Nation, The Best American Poetry, and Poem A Day. His fifth collection, The Opposites Game, is forthcoming from Red Hen Press. He currently teaches at the Windward School and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
