There are fish that swim in big, wide,
open hoops, until they die.
And they think it is spreading
like mint left to abandon.
Divers during morning plunges
find pinfish in odd loops and film them.
Soon, others join. Insignificant
baitfish. The saw-billed razor fish,
even the fat grouper, which we only
just saw at the aquarium,
with its tired eyes looking like
faces on the 5:12 train, bickering
over who saw the seat first.
Now, they think it is spreading.
They don’t know if it is a worm,
something they ate, or the red tide
choking off the oxygen. But maybe
we can stab at a hypothesis.
Perhaps, like me, it is something
inside, like a light switch left on, and on
depleting the bulb. Like my father, who
would shut the door to his bedroom,
take his meals on the bed, then
sleep in the spreading crumbs.
He would not speak,
—and we had nothing to say.
Every few weeks he did this,
a father who came home, yes—
Over and over, he would do this.
Puneet Dutt’s ‘The Better Monsters’ was a Finalist for the Trillium Book Award for Poetry and was Shortlisted for the Raymond Souster Award. Her most recent chapbook was Longlisted for the 2020 Frontier Digital Chapbook Contest, by Carl Phillips. Dutt lives in Markham with her partner and two kids.