Koi

There is a thin copper pole
from which our plentiful rain
drips off the gutters of my parents' roof
into a barrel sliced in half.
My father got this idea somewhere,
probably a gardening magazine or Bob Villa,
to fill this barrel
like a makeshift fishbowl
with two or three twenty-five dollar Koi.
Every few weeks, these Koi,
which should theoretically grow
in proportion with their surroundings,
instead grow far too large
and eventually float stomach up
to the top of the water.
When this happens,
A riot erupts in my confounded father's mouth,
"Dagnabit!"
"Fuckin A!"
before he goes back to the pet store,
forks over at least fifty dollars for more Koi
and once more plays the role
of their confused and bumbling God.

Doohickies

A scientist has me tied up
on an operating table.
He cracks my skull open with
a hammer and chisel
and piece by piece,
removes my memories,
carefully examining each
using a jeweler's loupe.
He places them in mason jars he marks,
this one 'joy'
that one 'misery'
this one 'fun'
that one 'despair'
this one 'NSFW'
Each memory smiles and waves as it
is taken away
by his scientific hands.
They look strange.
'Doohickies' may be the best way
to describe these contraptions,
somewhere between
creatures and machinations,
aglow with the light of a film reel replaying
the times I kissed a pretty girl
or times laughter masked sobs,
or beauty wiggled its way into furor,
or all those things I bitterly regretted
which I can barely now recall.
As each leaves in the scientist's hands,
my heart grows a little colder,
and Emptiness pokes his head up at
the end of the end of the table.
I watch the vision of my last happy day
being sealed up in its new home, when
the doctor's voice whispers softly in my ear
"No place will be better than here
or worse."