Toyfish
Silver carp,
fat goldfish in a cosmic pool,
you were my little-girl god;
you were where the thread
crooked
filled the invisible spool
head to tail.
Still swimming like a shuttle
you weave bright
lightyears
between the stars,
those silver pegs where
knots of matter are
on the black frame
of the spacetime loom.
I’ve made a toyfish,
much like you.
Slender, three-finned
it ascends, heaping an overspin
of fire behind it
a trail too fast
unravelling
My new fish dives
like a needle
toward the cratered button
of the moon,
and threads it,
and heads for the dozen big
buttons, grey and marrow-red
and the asteroid
scattered necklace of seedpearls
flung between the worlds.
Silver carp,
slim goldfish in the cosmic pool,
when you’ve unwound
from argent head to tail,
when you’re a skeleton,
a fishbone wishbone
by that first knot
dangling from the finished thread,
My toyfish
that is much like you,
and you,
will make a dark rendez-vous,
a docking manoeuvre
over the last black rent;
will bring you thread enough
to silver the separate spaces
into one whole sun.