On Wanting to Tell [ ] about a Girl Eating Fish Eyes, Mary Szybist

[moireach]

On Wanting to Tell [ ] about a Girl Eating Fish Eyes
Mary Szybist

-how her loose curls float
above each silver fish as she leans in
to pluck its eyes-

You died just hours ago.
Not suddenly, no. You'd been dying so long
nothing looked like itself: from your window,
fishermen swirled sequins;
fishnets entangled the moon.

Now the dark rain
looks like dark rain. Only the wine
shimmers with candlelight. I refill the glasses
and we raise a toast to you
as so and so's daughter-elfin, jittery as a sparrow-
slides into another lap
to eat another pair of slippery eyes
with her soft fingers, fingers rosier each time,
for being chewed a little.

If only I could go to you, revive you.
You must be a little alive still.
I'd like to put this girl in your lap.
She's almost feverishly warm and she weighs
hardly anything. I want to show you how
she relishes each eye, to show you
her greed for them.

She is placing one on her tongue,
bright as a polished coin-

What do they taste like? I ask.
Twisting in my lap, she leans back
sleepily. They taste like eyes, she says.