from Portraits of Fish by Ian Bickford

i.

Because I’ve been indoors all morning,
the windows stone-white
with the mist from the bath
water; because

the first cycle is never enough
to dry the laundry;
because the teakettle whistling
has woken me from where I doze

on the sofa, I rake
my hair, button my shirt,
and sit at the table
with a red pen to make notes

in a notebook. But in the absence
of language, I draw the outlines
of fish instead, page after
page, snapper and mackerel. Fins,

wide eyes, bodies so long
they threaten the edges of the paper.
I draw no ocean around them.
The fish contain the ocean.

…read the rest

(via yesyes)