A Poem by Jon Bennett

3 Fish in a Pool

Walking the bike path

I stopped at Cordanesus Creek.
It emerges briefly from a storm pipe
goes into a culvert under a footbridge
then back into a dark tunnel.

Still, in the shade there

are ferns, trees, and a pool
though not more than 2 feet deep.
I went down the steep embankment
avoiding baby diapers
and decaying garbage
to peer into the cool shallow

and was astonished to see

3 fish in that pool,
and a crawdad, old and pale
missing an arm but still
a little lobster
amongst the filth and failing
of people people people.

Back on the path

an old woman was watching me.
“There's 3 fish in the pool,”
I told her, “and a crawdad!”
We both smiled
and the path seemed greener
and filled with a promise
that someday we'd find
the things that we have lost.

Jon Bennett is a writer and musician living in San Francisco. He has published poetry in Rattle, Rumble, Dead Snakes, The Blue Hour, and a number of other journals, and just finished his first novel, "The Unfat," a speculative science fiction story about autism.