Donna Fleischer

He Let Go

They were friends for years until the day he flung his pole and tackle at her and walked away.

She'd brush past the brightly feathered lure, mouth closed tightly, gills barely closing, opening, his cast too shallow.

He retreats to a room where the little boy slides out of the man who sits at a desk and whittles poems. A desk of miniature cast iron warriors paint worn off, small notebooks, pocket knives, Pez Batman, toys, tricks against loneliness.

And male and female Siamese fighting fish, each in a glass bowl the size of a jar, fanning up for food flakes, down to sleep. He'd re-stock with new fake castles, plastic ornaments, a collapsed Doric column. The fish swim silently round and round.

throwing stones
from the sea, endless
grief