The biospheres pap culture
and botany, tap birdrealm
and make snow residue
clot like the past — and in
their thick tank, encased
inside the domes’ conduit,
piranhas eye off voyeurs
alone or in little groups
knowing was massing is
the spaced-out six or seven
shoal — mouths doubling,
eyelid over teeth, bonetool
for killers, shown on a platter
with salad in the ‘details’
on the wall (which I discover
they have plundered liberally
from the faux anarchy of Wikipedia) —
specimens, dental hygiene
taxonomy, this plant kingdom
in which tropical fish glitter —
I mean, glitter is my hell, those
little silver specks that show
up everywhere, the party-
time, the celebration, rituals
in need of illumination,
and that gel the body paint,
that spangle of decoration,
light bitten in, like the wen
on Rembrandt’s Apostle Simon
shown up from different angles,
bright spot in the stuckness
of display, the feeding frenzy.
John Kinsella