Delicate, it floats
Shimmering and waving, it
Lives and dies a—

The last word of the haiku evades me
Is it possible to describe such a thing,
So flamboyant as the Weedy Seadragon
With something so simple as a syllable?
I admire its rippling ridges, and
The clever curves of its flapping fins.
But a single syllable evades capture.

I examine an empty tank
“Exhibit under renovation”
I peer at the contours of my own face reflected in the glass
And I wonder if I am on display.

Later, I stare into a more clever sight:
An apparently vacant prison cell
Searching for the exotic fish advertised in the exhibit’s description,
I find nothing.
With the genius born of imagined desperation,
I look to the top of the tank,
Finding the silvery end of the preserving water, obscuring what lies beyond.
I wonder if I might see a hand, the hand of God,
Nourishing lonely fishes
Reaching through that silver sky
To nowhere
From nowhere.