Michelle Bitting

Funeral for a Beta fish

 

We buried him on a Sunday,

under the Jacaranda tree,

late summer blooms

unleashing their colored powder,

lavender raining down,

kissing our soft fists

as we tore the mantle hair

from the earth’s grassy head.

 

Into the dark eye of the loam, 

my daughter threaded a miniature

coffin: necklace box made plush

for the final bon voyage—

the shimmering red fins curled

on a cloud of white cotton.

 

We blessed the grave with dirt

and words, erased the underworld

door and stood, hands joined,

swaying with the dream,

our bodies a crown of light

atop death’s fiery core.

 

Hymns of love sailed towards us

from a church on a nearby street,

so that even the ants

bared their spirit,

making a compass needle,

a congo line, from our feet

towards the great music,

tamping the planet

with their tiny heels.

 

 

 

Michelle Bitting has work forthcoming or published in Prairie Schooner, Nimrod, Narrative, Crab Orchard Review, Passages North, Many Mountains Moving, Rattle, Linebreak, and others. Poems have appeared on Poetry Daily and Verse Daily. In 2007, Thomas Lux chose her full-length manuscript, Good Friday Kiss, as the winner of the DeNovo First Book Award and C & R Press published it in 2008. She holds an MFA in Poetry from Pacific University, Oregon. Visit her at: www.michellebitting.com