IS THAT ALL THERE IS?

The dull routine of human existence.

We unpack groceries
in the late afternoon
as a flurry of dust motes
settles down on
the linoleum floor.

Coming and going,
shopping and cleaning,
eating and sleeping,
belching and farting,
shtupping and pooping,
with each and every day a copy:

All I ever wanted
was a salt-water aquarium,
full of corals and anemones,
scungillis and starfish,
seahorses and sweetlips,
dottybacks, damsels
and slithering eels.

I’m going to choreograph
a watery Garden of Eden
in my coral reef aquarium,
as compelling as the Age
of Aquarius with a yellow
submarine under a golden
butterfly and a kissing gourami.

Lifted by salt, I’ll float on my back
as if I’m on top of the Dead Sea.
I’ll swim in harmony with fish,
nosing bubbles with them,
with sunshine on their bellies
like bikini-clad ladies showing
their sun-baked bottoms
in a fluid Cirque de Soleil.

No day will ever be the same