I
am slipping
in and out of myself like a fish
over a dam. Slipping
like catapulting, careening, plunging. I am slipping out of
my body like a fish from the claws of a bird. I am gripping myself like a bird with my
dinner. I am gripping the empty space where a fish used to be. My body was nothing for dinner. Dinner was a fish, then nothing, then my body.
I was a bird, then I was just
hungry.

Now,
dinner is just
shit because I am on
the toilet gripping the
fish, claws empty. I lean my back
against the toilet lid behind me
and realize I have been clawing
the empty fish all day. My body is
dinner, it’s chewed. I feel the teeth
of the toilet sink into the bird of my back and
I surrender.

For an instant I am the dam,
loose with gravity and falling like a fish
newly freed. Flying like a fish who is a bird.
For an instant the fish of my body is the dam—free.