The Fish Tank

Unaccustomed to fish and their ways,
we realise quickly that the goldfish bowls 
of our childhood are no longer the way,
and so, acceding to a preschooler's wish,
my wife spends hours learning
the ways of fish tanks 
and the fish that dwell in them,
then imparts this learning to me as we
gather together accoutrements
and seek to keep a fish alive.

Like new parents, powerless 
to draw the line between marketing and 
the edicts that utter death to the fish 
that do not receive them, we take
all advice, and pour 
hours the night before, like
purified water,
into the tank's assembly, then 

the next day slowly let
this fish like a newborn
take in its water, its new surrounds,
while two wondering eyes swallow all
in a dazzled gulp, and I
am back on the ground watching
his newborn pupils discover
this gobsmacking, stunning, sense-exploding whole
for the very first time, and wonder too:

that we should have made it through 
four years largely unscathed,
save the loss of sleep; that he
- this life-absorbing, world-imagining 
force before me
should be here at all,
staring in awe 
at a fish bubbling water.