A minnow found in the stomach of a pickerel had a pickerel
in its stomach that had in its stomach a minnow.
—John McPhee

We think we’re off the hook—
contained in containers

of multitudes.
When the goldfish dies,

we dissect the pet-store tank
for its match.

No one worries like we do.
We keepsake copies

in our gut, the attic
of identical gills.

Welcome to the autopsy,
where we discover

old desires we swallowed
wholesale,

the contents of those times
we came face-to-face

with ourselves and bit. We let
only the smallest boxes

of light consume us, and then
we polish our teeth on them.

Copyright © Linda Dove

Linda Dove holds a Ph.D. in Renaissance literature and most recently taught at Yavapai College in Arizona where she directed the creative writing program. She is the author of In Defense of Objects (Bear Star Press, winner of the Dorothy Brunsman Poetry Award, 2009) and O Dear Deer (Squall Publishing, winner of the Eudaimonia Poetry Review Chapbook Prize, 2011). Dove’s poems have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and were a finalist for the Robert H. Winner Award from the Poetry Society of America. She lives in Pasadena with her daughter and two Jack Russell terriers. You can order her books on Amazon or purchase them at Webster’s Fine Stationers in Altadena.