Fishbowl Brain

Remember how you loved me
like a goldfish; behind the glass
of your eyes I saw
my heart was never born in June
beside the peonies and the lilac,
nor at the bus stop where you showed me
the cigarettes in your body.
Body, tell me about forever.
Tell me how to see in 1080p, how to get back
to thinking in pictures knowing
there’s a poem in which I don’t have to miss you.
A poem that doesn’t smell like your cigarettes, or feel
like my head in a fishbowl. Fishbowl,
tell me about living in a silent room,
in still water. Teach me how to forget;
turn this life into a bus stop—
let me be a passenger in this poem.
My heart smells like cheap perfume,
lilacs and peonies from last June. And I remember
you with the memory of a goldfish—
so to say I live a different life
every time I think of you.

Poem and photography by Hazel J. Hall.
Previously published in volume 22 issue 2 of Centripetal.