Fish Rain

--James Davis May

It’s rare, but it happens:

A waterspout forms near land

and raptures the fish to the sky.

We’re not quite sure what happens next.

Well, we know that many die, 

that some are shredded by the winds,

that some are frozen into chunks of ice, 

and that some, some survive

even after the cyclone stops,

and they exist up there a while. 

Maybe they’re pummeled 

but supported by the currents

in the clouds, the way you keep

a tennis ball in the air

with a single racket—kept up 

until they aren’t and fall,

and even then some survive

to drown on land. What must it be like

to die after that ascension?

Before, life was so much hunger 

and short-lived satisfaction, 

but mostly buoyancy 

without knowing that word 

or any word. Yes, they’re dumb, 

but surely they know or sense 

something is ending,

one eye focused on the ground

the other on the lost sky—   

and the water an absence, 

a memory they can’t remember,

while that human sound of wonder

starts up when they’re found

and can’t, I imagine, help them.