Susan Meyers

Koi

The smallest are pond bred, slip stitches

of the bright selves they’re turning into.

The larger ones quicken the hour, shimmering

along the deepest channel and settling for constant

change. Today the pickerelweed blooms three more

purple spikes, the lizard’s tail leans farther from its pot.

The fish with black-tipped fins and two white streaks

on its head swims straight down the middle, then

without pause, turns from the cool pleats

of the waterfall and swims back, as if to unravel

a mistake. The others thread in and out of rushes

and spatterdock, near the dragonfly that scissors

on the iris above. They know the shady spots

and the one that brings a late-afternoon shower

of food, as in the pearled light they gather and rise

above trees and sky to knot the day’s loose ends.