It isn’t a love story in the conventional sense. None of them is quite sure enough of their own identity to truly love another creature, but there’s something about the group dynamic that makes it beautiful. Under the bulrushes, the fish shimmers, iridescent, mirroring the flower. A minnow, maybe, or a silver-bellied sardine. The stagnant water of the pond is witness to their fearful synergy.
“I love you,” says the fish, winnowing his dorsal fin along the flower’s petal edge.
And then, since fishes’ brains are sand-slides of unremembering, he sidles up again, seconds later, and repeats his benediction. [Susie Carlon Gordon]