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Blue Marble Review

Literary Journal for Young Writers

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the man from the fish market

By Katie B. Tian

how can i pull a kind of reckless
reminiscence from the fish market

in town—on sunday i go alone.
the gardenias are unwatered

upon my return, the chamomile
unsteeped, toppling odds one over

another over another, but i can
only wring the salt from my sundress

and fill my mouth with brine. i scribble
on soiled parchment—to my husband—

but he will not be home until the ink
bleeds dry. the fish eyes are seething

blind so i sever sinew from bone,
bone carved of alabaster, simmered

and made into stew for a blind man’s
dinner. he will return riding the coattails

of a beer-battered high with not even
counterfeit love to give. i rock

in an armchair and think of this love,
cut from the lining of a singed oyster

shell, this love, wasted. before the
decades drowned themselves

in kerosene, i encountered a man at the
fish market on a sunday who gave

to me a spiraling romance in the ashes.
now, i tear the soft flesh of an apricot

naked from its pit and suck its nectar
from my gaping wounds—do you miss

me as much as i miss you? stranger—
you should see the acropolis i built

for you in my dreams. we are more
and more than this, you said. you

promised me more than a half-baked
existence so where are you now? now,

i lay a gallery of scraps on the beaten
cobblestone and wait for the coyotes

to feast at dusk. they say if the fever
does not kill you the loneliness will.

they say it is easier to play pretend. and
it is not until i have taped cellophane

ghosts to the sills and hung the linen
to dry that i recall—the man from the

fish market i married, but look what
has become of us now. a stranger

now. look—the tides are ever in flux,
shifting. look—i can no longer water

the roots of my saltwater fantasy.
look—how can i con serendipity?

pray that this life—clean, scale, gut—
is only a prototype for the next one.

 

Katie B. Tian is a fifteen-year-old writer from New York and a student at Jericho High School. She has been recognized nationally by the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards for her work. She hopes to share her visions with a larger community through her poetry and prose.

Filed Under: Poetry Tagged With: July 2021

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