Imagine
By Jacqueline Knirnschild
if you can, inside a cave, a waterfall
gushes on a rock, and on
the rock is a translucent, whitish pink
eyeless fish. The blind cave tetra.
Now imagine, if you can, that you are the tetra,
and the current constantly washes over you–
your smooth, clear back, your non-eye
sockets and spindly little hook fingers
that cling to the rock. Imagine, if you can,
your entire world is a single waterfall
inside a single cave. From your birth,
you must always cling–cling while you feed,
cling while you mate, cling until you die,
die clinging to the rock that holds you.
The waterfall above you is both a salve and a
threat, but you know that you can hold on,
that thousands of years have formed
your unbelievably beautiful body. Imagine,
if you can, sleeping under a torrential downpour,
and never knowing stillness, never knowing quiet,
the falling water always beating down on you–
a rhythm inside of you, a tune to which you live your days.