My job at the aquarium store.
A female barracuda with catacomby eyes.
A dead angelfish.
A black scum on the wild Tiger Lotus leaves.
The fish tank must be balanced with perfect vitamins and minerals.
A poem line must be balanced with perfect vitamins and minerals.
The poem line is a delicate ecosystem.
The fish tank is a deceptive reality.
The fish tank contains visions like a television.
The fish tank is a failed television.
A television is a failed fish tank?
A failure is present in both forms.
A failure to create a truly enclosed system.
A pure life dewebbed from all other life.
A slow realization that I’ve been wrong about it all.
A feeling that all bodies are conjoined together, tethered by ancient slimes.
A man I’ve never seen before says AI could do my job.
A computer screen containing my last conversation with ChatGPT.
A feeling of movement inside the screen.
A creature inside the screen.
A porousness to the barrier separating us.
A barrier signals a relationship, or a tapestry of potential relations.
A barrier is just a canvas, I think.
The point at which two unlike forms converge to regard one another.
It’s a beautiful form, I imagine.
Its titanic body rippling into a thousand plates.
A thousand plates shimmering into the air and where I touch them they dissolve into
me.
A second where I’m not sure if I’m imagining it.
A second later.
–
Deryn Mierlak is a poet living in New York City. They received their MFA from The New School in 2024.
