Robbi Nester

Robbi Nester is a retired college educator and the author of 4 books of poetry, editor of 3 anthologies. She also hosts and curates two poetry reading series. Learn more at her website, http://www.robbinester.net.

The Shop Within

“It must be the supermarket inside me.” — Major Jackson

There’s a tropical fish store inside me,
a humid space where one can hear
the burbling of the filters night and day,
mumbling like drunks. Every day, I walk
the narrow aisle, and in the dim light,
watch the round mouths of sucker catfish,
those prehistoric tanks with tails, work
their way across the algae on glass
walls, the gravel substrate.
The melancholy discus drift, stopping
to feed on knots of tubiflex. Ghost knives
arch like eyebrows. Sometimes
I’m called upon to net and bag
a flash of neon tetras or some angels
for a stranger who wants his tank
to match his couch. He doesn’t care
these colors are alive. I know
the customer is always right. Still,
I lose my patience with these people,
who wouldn’t listen if I tried
to argue. The fish cannot be saved,
here or in the Amazon.
I have learned just to place
the bags of living colors
in the cart and turn away.