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William Fargason

Aquarium

[view as PDF]

You want to keep feeding the fish
inside you, but you keep

eating the fish because you’re hungry.
This is not the way it should go.

No one said you would not be hungry.
You knew the dimensions of the aquarium

inside you, knew it was inside you.
She who fogged the glass didn’t know

that you’d eaten the fish, but you did and do.
You hear the aquarium inside your chest

crack, and before you know it, the carpet
is soaked with bleached coral,

plastic kelp, and multi-colored gravel.
This is not the way it should go.

This is not how anyone should go under—
the water that you contained now contains you.

 


Vol. 44, No. 1

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Tomas Venclova

Literature & Democracy

Tomas Venclova

“A principled stance against aggression should never turn into blind hatred. Such hatred does not help anyone to win . . .”

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