If I were a fish this reduced metabolism
would be in response to some danger —
a panicked hibernation, a lessening of vibrations.
That’s it then, but not. No, there is no real safe space
no silencing vibrations even in death no that
that is an absence of ears that hear
that is an absence of understanding
which is, as one more dead fish washed up,
as sunset explains the decay of architecture,
the sour under note to the breeze.