The Dolphin Poem by Morgan Michaels

And there it is- a sudden hallucination,
an irid shmear, a soaring dolphin
sailing memory's sea: not the whale, silly, the fish,
wire-hung between parapets of the boathouse hall-
breed unknown to Michigan waters,

its long-ago, startled eye
(that might have been just clear, lidless glass
but that certainly looked real, and if so,
entirely immune to decay!)
studding its cephalonial head.

Its mouth, ridged with midget teeth,
a-gape as if the fishy creature just recalled
forgetting something vital:
something of huge, even im-
ponderable importance: e.g.

a burner left on, its rapid, blue flame
licking the kettle's round plastron
now charred black, filling the kitchen
with coils of bitter, yellow smoke
such as might well choke an eye, a nostril;

a door left unlocked, a coffee pot
left plugged-in, a porch full of plants
gasping for drink, a cat unfed,
a bill unpaid beyond its date of due,
thereby allowing interest to accrue;

or even the purpose of its sallying forth,
or anything else forgotten,
then, remembered with regret
as having, by ditzy omission, many
disastrous effects.