we sat on the back of a goldfish


they're all back. i haven't. the stars on the island don't seem to be getting more or less or transformed into sailboats, black-faced spoonbills one by one they roam the sea, gradually making the sea their home. you ask me if the moon jogs a distant memory of you walking down a long dark alleyway. no one was there but the morning pearl walking around, it jumped from the shattered eaves of the house and stops at your hairline. the pace and the leaves are randomly swaying. the gravel road is pieced backward into a set of turtle-shaped tuneless music. because the same moon, missing the same person in a different sea, using the moon as a reason to say a million things that have nothing to do with the moon.

we sat on the back of a goldfish. until the words rot in our mouths, or we run out of words. until our eyes come back from the lunar dust. until the universe stops, at which point even breathing becomes difficult.