This poem is from the October 3, 2017 Poetry Fishbowl. It was prompted and sponsored by Anthony Barrette. It also fills the "ocean" square in my 9-1-17 card for the Pirate Fest Bingo. "Fisheye Lenses" Sometimes I sit in front of an aquarium and imagine what it would be like to be a fish. The light is golden-green where it shines through the leaves of the waving plants, and the water is clear and soft -- except at the edges. I imagine that fish don't understand glass. I can't look at a river without thinking myself into it. The water here is silken and twisted, skeins of current running fast and slow, the taste of home pulling salmon upstream like a silver fishhook without a barb. Whenever I see the ocean, I remember the fish within it. Color becomes meaning, and life requires motion; every surface is colonized, incorporated into the ecosystem, all flotsam and jetsam seen as fair game, finders keepers, but I can't help recalling that this is still litter. The human body is a vessel for the spirit, but it doesn't have to be a cage. I have learned how to slip out and see the world through fisheye lenses, a kind of mental gymnastics that keeps my soul limber and free.