Parable by Carl Phillips

Parable

 

There was a saint once,

he had but to ring across

water a small bell, all

 

manner of fish

rose, as answer, he was

that holy, persuasive,

 

both, or the fish

perhaps merely

hungry, their bodies

 

a-shimmer with

that hope especially that

hunger brings, whatever

 

the reason, the fish

coming unassigned, in

schools coming

 

into the saint’s hand and,

instead of getting,

becoming food.

 

I have thought, since, of

your body—as I first came

to know it, how it still

 

can be, with mine,

sometimes. I think on

that immediate and last gesture

 

of the fish leaving water

for flesh, for guarantee

they will die, and I cannot

 

rest on what to call it.

Not generosity, or

a blindness, trust, brute

 

stupidity. Not the soul

distracted from its natural

prayer, which is attention,

 

for in the story they are

paying attention. They

lose themselves eyes open.