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I gaze into the hazy aquarium
the fat fluorescent orange fantails
swimming back and forth in it
as if through a poisonous vapor
cloud           How long can they live
in this polluted tank?

Why doesn’t someone attempt 
to clean and purify it—a messiah 
of sick aquariums—to fix the filter 
and save the angels from this
death-fog murk?

Wave after wave of faces reflect 
briefly  in the smudged glass: Frank who  
fought in Korea     Elba cussing
no one in particular     Yoriko 
who was interned at Tule Lake
and Mary who is deaf though
everyone hears her smile— 

their wheelchairs park hub to 
hub in front of the sick fish 
theater             waiting for the rank
curtain to rise

Susan Kelly-DeWitt | Mudlark No. 38
Contents | Limbo Suite