Terrible Goldfish by Ryan Quinn Flanagan
I see your wide swimming mouth
the bubbles your tiny life makes
dirty bowl fin flapping through
my mind
the cats detest you, terrible goldfish,
you give them a hunger
thwarted by a simple
screen
I watch them fail
and think of Napoleon
in Russia
the way men will follow men
to folly,
but get angry and tailgate a single car
not going fast enough
and the orange you speak of
is gone so fast it never colours
anything
I look for orange you, terrible goldfish,
the many hues on the walls;
scour the galleries without ever knowing
you have left.
Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian born author presently residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario Canada. His work has been published both in print and online in such places as The New York Quarterly, Windsor Review, Vallum, The Antigonish Review, CV2, Horror Sleaze Trash, Evergreen Review, Borderless Journal, Himalaya Diary, Rusty Truck and Lothlorien Poetry Journal.