You hear a commotion upstairs
climb up from the basement
find your mother and a strange man
cursing and batting the air
a leaf-green
sleek-fat
fish
undulates
through the air
shining and
languorous
serenely
plump
two more fish
escape
their cardboard
box, circumnavigate
the room, inscribing
circles of swaying flesh
around your heads
you don’t want
them to
touch
you but
you want
to know what’s
underneath that
shimmering skin, you
reach up and grab one
startle at its tautness
it fissures under
your fingers
stars
spill
out
Tara Campbell (www.taracampbell.com) is a Kimbilio Fellow, a fiction editor at Barrelhouse, and an MFA candidate at American University. Prior publication credits include SmokeLong Quarterly, Masters Review, Jellyfish Review, Booth, and Strange Horizons. Her novel TreeVolution was published in 2016, followed in 2018 by Circe’s Bicycle. Her third book, a short story collection called Midnight at the Organporium, will be released by Aqueduct Press in 2019.