Es muss sein

– Ludwig van Beethoven

Oh La La La,
You stocky
clown triggerfish
with your yellow-
blotched caudal
peduncle and your spangles
of white. You think
I’ll meet you at the reef slopes
like a desperate lover
near the punch bowl
at a Sadie Hawkins dance,
but I keep
to my reading at night,
find the map from my
self to my
other self. If I could
name the ocean that holds you, I’d
decline. Your
dominion is absolute
and beautiful—a salvation
in a fount of drowning. Like
gravity before we
understand it or subside. You are
the number on the other side
of one-hundred, the donation
of salt to wonder, the little God
propped up next to a little,
edible world. But you
know that already,
don’t you, you water
parter, you diurnal swimmer,
you saucy, scampering,
stand-up routine of a fish?