Poetry by Maureen Wilkinson
Chinese Fortune Fish
CHINESE FORTUNE FISH
This is where we watch for fish.
Where the trees step back,
and the stream loops, lucid and slow,
into a long unscrolling of clouds.
Cloud pale water pages for the quick
Chinese brushwork fish to write our fortunes
in brown trout hieroglyphics;
swimming unsayable words,
whose parallel meaning is lucky.
Surely lucky? For today a single fish, snoozing the current,
motionless as a hawk,
its body's breath a backwards Y of water,
signed me slow motion magic.
Dear Good Fortune Trout
bask on in the pool of my eye. Shall I soon receive
fame, or love,
or just enormous wealth?