Michele Mason

The Secrets Of Hotels And Koi Ponds

We take a walk to the beach; he has been
away for two years. Mother has noticed
the changes; she wants me to find out why.
"It's always the blood and bodies." she says.
Men shouldn't be allowed to go to war,
we never let them in the kitchen
when washing a body. "For good reason" she adds.

He knows I'm a plant; the little sister
sent to get secrets, but he doesn't
blame me. He tells me that they kept
fish, as long as my arm, in deep ponds.
When the moon came out, they sprinkled
shiny goldfish in handfuls over
the water; the koi rose slowly,
like submarines, gulped the small fish
and swam away with tails waving
from their mouths.

A pretty girl walks by; he looks
and says, "At least a 35." His system
for women is based on how much
he would be willing to spend
on a room for the night. I smile,
tell him hotel rates have gone up.
She's at least a 65.

He remembers a fishing trip
when he was a teenager, hunting
for blues off the Virginia coast.
Dad pulled aboard an 18-pounder.
He was fishing next to Dad
and pulled up half a sea bass,
cut clean at the middle. After
they bludgeoned the big fish,
they pulled the other half from its mouth.

He talks about the food chain;
governments and nations on top,
the rest of us on the bottom.
I tell him he makes a beautiful
goldfish. He laughs and tells me
they eat the sarcastic ones first.

I wheel his chair up the boardwalk,
we can see lights in the kitchen.
A jogger runs by. "Now that's a 50."
I smile and slap his shoulder. Later,
when he has gone to bed, Mother will ask
what we talked about. Maybe I will tell her
about gilded silver koi in a black pond
chasing goldfish.

Michele Mason writes: I am a freelance writer (travel and human interest) living in Oregon with my two sons and two huge birds. (Cockatoos won't leave you like sons do.)