Nothing's As Dead As A Fish Poem by Patti Masterman

There is a dead fish somewhere,
Rotting deep inside of me.
The smell is visceral, though invisible;
It stinks of abandoned dreams,
Rots with unfulfilled ambitions.
It's dredged up again
With every unhappy circumstance:
Float, fish, through unquarried hopes,
Carrion of your eggs, your staring eyes,
You fins shriveled and stuck to the body.

Once you almost flew in water, but now you sink stone-like.
Once I sank in air, after I was abandoned
Too far from the riverbank.
Now I stink like a day old fish
Found around the frying pan,
Where there is only more fire,
And a flaying knife, to lay me open
To the world's inquisitive stares-
Even if they pretend not to smell it.