Lamella

Beneath the waver of the dorsal fin lie the blood-shades of lamellae, their skin so close to the vein they breathe, filter, gather, flex, set down in loose and frangible parallels you find in gills of mushrooms, clams, and concertinas. Wave after wave, the tissues of the water breathers conceal what they reveal, according to their vital rhythm. Fins that breathe flit this way, that, in the give-and-take of panic and lust and tropical surge from no one place. To every fish, flesh, nightmare, and song: a private opening and the name it bears. Let us call it tomorrow or lament, the heart of my volition