As promised, here is another poem by Melissa Varnavas. I love the watery images, the “s” sounds and alliteration, and so much more.

Melissa joined in the Massachusetts Poetry Festival on Saturday, as one of the MFA readers. I wasn’t able to go, and I haven’t checked with her about how it went. But, here’s hoping it will help get her used to being a featured reader, since she so deserves to be.

Song for the replacement fish my husband bought

Now the red spikey one disappears itself.

In the next vase, the one with its tail tipped

…

too bright for its white body

turns to peer through lamp-lit layers of water dust.

…

Its soft sway,

stirs the murk. But they

…

make me

their captor,

these shadows that swim

magnified

…

by glass, water. In their artificial ponds they go

around

and vanish

so not so much as a cerulean fin shows.

***

His favorite color is blue. He thinks it’s my favorite color, too.

So, that’s why he bought me that one. It’s why he painted the hallway

…

that deep hue, so dark

I had to dabble over it with sky.

***

The first batch died. Turned over in their vases belly-up,

making the water yellow, their bodies

…

bleeding their brilliant color out.

…

I didn’t really want them, these replacement fish.

I look again and they are all gone, now

…

as they should have been

after the flushing and before the gift.