Forgive me, I killed
          your fish. I fed her,
          set her in the sun.
          I didn't know.

Forgive me, I didn't
          cry. I let you bury it
          in our backyard,
          then let you leave me
          with the body.

Forgive me, I crawled
          into your new bed, whispered
          to sleep, just to sleep.

Forgive me, I knew
          long before any conjunction
          of blue lines told me it was true,
          long before you.

Forgive me, I laughed—
          There Goes My Baby, crackling
          speaker, beige, the same color as the waterstained
          ceiling it nestled inside.
          The Drifters crooned and I broke
          open, let it all tumble
          onto the laminate floor.

Forgive me, I cut
          through you, burned you down,
          saw the other side as a feast
          where we could eat the fruit of our fields.
          But we don't eat the fruit. Forgive me,
          that's the joke.

__

I really did kill that fish, accidentally. One apology led to another and before I knew it, there was this poem and I wasn't talking about fish anymore.