University of Northern Iowa

FishesAuthor(s): Joyce ThomasSource: The North American Review, Vol. 290, No. 2, The National Poetry Month Issue (Mar. -Apr., 2005), p. 3Published by: University of Northern IowaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25127326 .

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NAR

THE 2005 JAMES HEARST POETRY PRIZE

JOYCE THOMAS

Fishes

Tve been thinking of the fish

my grandmother's sister kept in the pool in her garden, how beautiful they were

with their veined, translucent fins

and tissue paper tails, and long, flowing moustaches trailing like scarves in the air

that was water, and them glimmering orange, gold, ebony and pearl in the luminous reiterations of sun

and scales, of fish that cost more than a meal.

How I stood at the rim watching them

breathing, swimming or leaping

to snatch the buzzing beads of the flies

before sinking like fringed jellyfish down

in the dark that seemed deep as a well,

sinking so slowly I could not tell when

the body vanished, its image became

only a shimmering scrim of scales, of brightness

that had been looked at too long. How I stood peering in,

looking for them like tiny Nessies

to rise out the leafy spume of the depths, rise like loosed kites winging up to the heights where I stood at the rim

sowing bread on the water

with handfuls of wishes, wishes

for fishes to come swimming in light,

come for the crumbs being flung on the mirror, come through the dimming drowned moon of my face.

gypi^HHb ?1 life/' % -?^^^^^K???^^

FIRST PLACE JAMES HEARST POETRY PRIZE

March-April 2005 NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW 3

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