The Lonely Pipefish

Up, up, slender As an eel’s Child, weaving Through water, our lonely Pipefish seeks out his dinner, Scanty at best; he blinks Cut-diamond eyes—snap—he Grabs morsels so small Only a lens pinpoints them, But he ranges all over That plastic preserve—dorsal Fin tremulous—snap—and Another çedilla Of brine shrimp’s gone ... We talk on of poetry, of love, Of grammar; he looks At a living comma— Snap—sizzling about In his two-gallon Caribbean And grazes on umlauts for breakfast. His pug nosed, yellow Mate, aproned in gloom, Fed rarely, slumped, Went deadwhite, as we argued on; That rudder fin, round as a Pizza cutter, at the End of his two inch Fluent stick self, lets his eyes Pilot his mouth—snap... Does his kind remember? Can our kind forget?