I Am Salmon
Emily Dickinson Awards Anthology 2003 - September 01, 2003
I Am Salmon I was salmon, you, a too-well-done petite filet mignon, I, a dry martini up, you, a sweet Manhattan–and not so many years ago, it seems, though the calendar claims it’s been more than twenty-five.
As we’ve silvered alone to TV movies here at home-- you Disney comedies, me classics-- I’m still a dry martini up while you’ve salmoned to a drier gin Cosmopolitan before we turn into old favorites again, I, salmon, you, now a pink petite filet, as we sit here at the end of day lit by shrinking candlelight, waiting for dessert-- and whatever lurks to consume us in the eddying midnight corners of what’s left of love when dinner’s done.
*Semifinalist, published in 2003 Emily Dickinson Awards Anthology (Universities West Press, 2003), p. 47.