My Fish Is a Mutt
When I bought it, it was a goldfish against the glass. A prominent one. A goldfish swimming and looking at itself, tail-flailed fins like red tulips of fire in slow motion.
After I brought it home, it swam circles through the night. The lights were off and it couldn’t see itself anymore; an eye bulb unfocused, the space unceasingly large.
My goldfish’s ancestor came from the Atlantic ocean, off of an island chain that nobody can pronounce, in the vicinity of Jamaica: a fish chosen for its tall and pointy spine; because of its inability to escape the scrape of a net; because it survived for a day in a pile of slime with thirty-thousand other fish; because it was the only one alive; because in the laboratory there was a romantic environment of seaweed and soft lamps and a male that raced like a barracuda towards her.
A Play Where We Both Play Zeus
There is a pathway to follow
while I follow an ant. It drags a dying horsefly
into a wider spiral
towards the nest—
others accumulate seeds, gnawed edges of leaves,
the black and shining forked limbs of other ants:
into a dome that is two feet high.
From his window, my neighbor watches these ants as well—
the progression of attempts—something smaller.
And then comes a drunk
after the movie gets out
walking with unsteady strides
the way Godzilla walks through a small town in the 1950s:
through fountain-swirls of a neon awning
across the hoods of cars.
A universe humming here,
from a moonlight on the river-ripples,
from the crowds walking across my neighbor's property,
between hedges he trimmed into Disney characters,
a Dumbo that is the largest and most looming into my lawn.
My neighbor watches me with with his headphones on.
He does Karate chops in front of his window.
I wave and he doesn't wave back.
*
Scott Montgomery lives in the Andes of Peru in the sacred valley. It is here that he spends his time in the community, learning the Quechua language and holding workshops for children on themes related to self-expression and sustainability. He is at work on a book of creative nonfiction, which has been funded through Kickstarter. To follow the project as it takes place, please visit the project blog at www.footstepsandvoices.com. Scott Montgomery received his MFA in creative writing (poetry) from Arizona State University, where he served as poetry editor for Hayden's Ferry Review.