“A Girl Like Sils”

She looked so peaceful,

she could meet God

in the passenger seat

on our monthly trip to Petco

to cuss out the ferrets

and browse LED-lit tanks.

The sky was curving

like a fish bowl,

and the needle-point

galaxy of the highway

poked at glass, tapped back.

She was the moment

you first begin to float.

She once told me,

while braiding my hair,

that sex is a game of jacks,

a multitasking chore. Boys

gawked at her like she was

already wet in their hands,

shimmering, gasping for air.

Her hair was Betta-fish fins,

fanning magnificently

out of the car window.

My heart is a sopping mass

of moss and algae, treading.

I can’t help but think

how ugly I must look

trying to swim. I often

stared at her as she slept—

her mouth agape, she appeared

upside down, slick

as rubber, like she was waiting

for a green-mesh net

to pluck her out. Empty-handed

on the drive back from

the pet store, she drank up

the breeze, dreamt up out loud

what it must feel like to drown

in a plastic bowl on a shelf.