The Fish in the Little Pool by the Patio

are colored red, black, and pearl swimming.
Though her hair remains quite brunette,
her skin has paled and swollen.
The carp that brush her face
remind me of my own and no less sucker-like lips
that wandered there, too. Once.

But, the fish themselves are thinking food thoughts.
They don't remember her long hands with lacquered nails
that scattered freeze-dried insect eggs over our trembling waters,
the ornaments that hung from her wrists, or
the ways her gifts are wasted on them now.