Wanting Water

by HEATHER LANG-CASSERA

—after the extinct San Marcos gambusia

Here is where I return
      to when I am feeling without you,
when object permanence

fails me, when the ocean perch
      within my chest turns
into a ruby-throated hummingbird

and then back
      into a fish out of water yet again
all without ever being seen.

But, in the end, everything
      is hidden from at least somebody.
It is Pisces season. What we let go

can be written down and then burned
      and then, instead of buried, lost
within the moon water

which was made by abandoning
      open-mouthed vessels beneath
this late-night light.

This time, under this
      terrestrial body, it can only
be the small things that we let go.

When we were young,
      you would look up asking
to be held.

Would our mother empty
      her vacant pockets, pulling
them inside out

as if ebbing like tidal flow,
      as if each denim basin could be
an entire sea, only

to say no, to say she had nothing
      more to offer. What does it mean
that I am so much older 

than you were when you died.
      Why can I no longer
remember the shape

of you, sister, when
      you would
swim.