(gold)fishy justwrite

This is why there's a goldfish in her water jug and no mountains on the moon except one or two with mossy clearings where I stop to write in quick but not spontaneous moments, full of orange slices of orange, without the skin because as soon as it's broken it might as well disappear. The mornings come faster now than when I was young. It's as though time is one continuous morning, not the kind where I wear a black veil and pat handkerchiefs against my cheeks, only a yellow sundress with a red apron folded in the grass, pebbles in each pocket, spilling into the world. I sketch empty faces onto tree bark, tape it back up when I'm done, keeping out the cold like the newspaper pages in my sleeves, headlines crumpled against color, smudged so I think my magnifying glass is dirty when I try to read them. I sprout scales in the afternoon, search for water when I'm already submerged because I've been wet my whole life and feel that something is missing when you remind me so harshly, your breath smelling of the seaweed that grows from beneath your fingernails. I count the pebbles one by two until the time comes back again, reminding me to iron my pants and wipe the glitter from my face--evening is no time to shine, no time like the present, wrapped with a bow and nestled in my branches, soaking in the salts from the air, the sand from the puddles my feet refuse to leave. And that is why there's a goldfish in her water jug. Because the mountains were already full.