drinking like a fish by William Greenway
though blue at a distance,
the surface is clear
as gin with a tension
that can bob you like
an ice cube. what
you really want, though,
is to float below
in chartreuse light,
to glide through tonic bubbles
above the swaying kelp,
borne along on currents, while
your heavy body, stranded
on land, still stumbles
and gasps. this
is your true element,
where predators
ignore the pinstripe
of the inedible.
you’re even
a pisces.
deeper and deeper
you go, to the bottom,
fin silt that swirls
like bourbon in branch water
to darken the gloom
where things with gelatin
wings glow blue
as a gas flame.
and this is where
you want to live
forever-to grow so
transparent, so fragile,
even the weight of the sea
cannot crush you.