are slipping through, as the lamprey did,
and the zebra mussels, the Irish, the Mexicans,
through holes in the fence, upsetting our delicate
craft, carp huge and leaping, taking jobs
as dance instructors, flinging their scarves
of water, displaying how far even the awkardest
gesture can go,
how their scarves are made of tears,
carp dressed for a blind date with history,
accompanied by circus music, slosh and oompah,
each and each, upward spikes, the neighbor’s
radio or their fighting, who can tell?
O world that does not know holy from
unholy, that provides no fabric labels, here is
tender flesh flying headlong into the boat,
here is the breeze carrying even the tiniest
GMOs gently across, an exultation of fittingness:
carp the size of rowboats, dinosaurs exactly
high enough for the branches, pterodactyls
measured for their sky. Then observe the random
irresponsibility of barriers, how our DNA climbs
its own spiral staircase for good or ill, how
the vast interior can turn inside out like a shirt,
how glaciers come and go, the molten lava,
molecular dust, how the hems of the Great Lakes
unravel.
Observe, then, what comes from the pit
of hopelessness and rises on its own like a cork,
springs even an inch or two above the surface
as if with joy, released from what appeared
to be everything but wasn’t the half of it.