In Which a Father is Quizzed
We tend the aquarium as a team,
with smallest child wielding the net,
skimming the reeds of its wire handle
in a refractive hunt for the blue betta
her older brothers call Moonshine.
Middle boy taps food from a paper can,
and when the oldest wants to talk about pH,
rather than expound on homeostasis,
I unwind my Groucho Marx imitation,
waggle that I’m neutral on that particular subject.
Giggles rise with the aerator’s bubbles,
random code I’ve cracked for now—
soon enough I’ll be discovered and expelled,
soon impossibility’s cutting whisper
will carve her initials in my family tree.
Our minutes could be meteors
icily melting away from themselves,
their weight confetti scattered onto water,
floating, then kissed away by goldfish
which also seem sometimes to glow.
© 2010 Carver B. Goodly
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