Goldfish and Sinusitis

Belly up
is not how it’s supposed to look,
is it?  Eyes glazed, sightless…
What will I tell her?

That nothing is permanent,
that life brings disappointments
even when a goldfish
is the object of affection?

Sparkles has lost his sheen.
Already those opalescent scales
have dulled pale and pasty;
even the special light bulb

cannot make it right.
I will not tell her, not yet.
Instead I make the rounds…
19 pet stores in a 30 mile radius;

surely one will have a double.
Yes!  Sparkles  lives  again.
After all, it is Spring,
a time for miracles
and sinusitis.

April Is the Cruelest Month*

         * the title is a line from The Wasteland by TS Eliot