San Gabriel Valley Poetry Quarterly

Denise Walsh

Metaphor

Of course my mother’s face is the mirror.
My father’s heart is an underwater cave.
A moray eel lives there. Needles
line his mouth. I am a clown fish, unaware.

Of course the field is mined with clover.
Stars explode in northern skies.
Lakes are the craters they leave.

Of course my words careen against planets.
My thoughts are the rings around Saturn.
My brother is my quasar,
my dead sun, my dark star.

after Nadia Tueni
1935 – 1983