Luke Whitington: ‘The Fish That Dreamed Of Dancing’

The Fish That Dreamed Of Dancing

Unlike his grown siblings
So much thinner, a continuous fin
A weaving, rippling mane
From eyes going all the way down to the tail.

Swimming upstream, sinuously
But calculating, through the current—
Or streaming like a banner would in the wind
Or now hurtling back downstream like an arrow
Propelled from out of some mythological machine.

On a soft rainy spring day, through the mist he saw them
Slender, auburn-haired women dressed in Celtic red
Hands linked to hands above the mossy bank
Dancing in a circle, one way, then the other way—
Swaying skirts skipping ahead to a flute playing.

His great eye emerged for a long look
The image and sound rolled round in his head, but when
He returned each spring, they were never there again
Although the sight of the women in red dresses swinging
Along through their dance had never left his memory.

Only the other creatures, who came as before, he knew by heart—
Sometimes a ponderous bison, grazing the early spring
Pushing his nose just under the rushing currents.
Some elk and moose arriving in the freeze,
Their antlers wobbling as they dipped big
Mouths into the bubble-clouded water.

Shaggy sunset-golden bears came as well
Sometimes their massive paws
Scooped down to claw him up; he easily
Flicked his shape around and swished away.

For years he liked to cruise alone
And contemplate
Without sisters or brothers.
On soft grey April days
Under pinpricks of drifting rain
The image of those unfurling skirts
Still imprinted, red on his ancient memory.

One day the river men caught him finally
The net was something he never expected
And when they hung him from a pole
By the bend of the shining river, he was twice the height
Of the child sniffling, awkwardly there beside him.

He could feel the deep shudder coming
Long before it chose to and then coldly came
And by dreaming hard to keep away the pain
He relished those Celtic dresses for seconds again
Furling as the women returned, flowing along in redness
There on the bend, where the skies now bled with rain.

Luke Whitington