Celeste Lipkes: Two Small Fish

I see you once

a month,

the calendar

like a net I sink

my hands into.

I know how to let

two small fish

feed five thousand,

how to kneel

at the stained glass

of a gill: our forks

tangling, my lips

at your throat.

Alone, I multiply

snatches

of brightness

until a night

catches us

not yet frightless,

& the last thing

I see is your eyes’

golden lattice,

blue breaking

behind it.

Published 2015. A weirdly effective mingling of three different strands. In the author’s words: ‘“Two Small Fish”… was actually the first poem I wrote in medical school. It came out of my experience of being in a long-distance relationship where a single visit with my then boyfriend had to last me months. The poem plays with the idea of being satiated by very little by using the image of Jesus’ miracle of multiplying two fish and a few loaves of bread to feed 5,000 people.’