You that lurked half-thug
among the pebbles, world-worn
but waggish—gave you Paly Frags
and you ate them. Flowers of the reef,
same. Put to your eyes the beauty
of camouflage, and you became it.
What was broken in you
broke waves until the others
were pulled through your hunger
into the imaginary
planets and pouches
of your stomach. All gold spotted
you were above your metallic
base of blue—on the other side
of social, in the orchard
of your private circulations,
like a thought I once had
but can’t remember
though I beckon with pellets
and messages of support.
Gold Spotted Rabbitfish by Melissa Studdard | Lemon Poetry Reed Diffuser Set
Melissa Studdard is the author of song cycles, libretti, and many books. Her poetry collection, Dear Selection Committee, includes poems featured by The New York Times, The Penn Review Poetry Prize, the Best American Poetry blog, and the Lucille Medwick Award for the Poetry Society of America. Her writing has also been featured by outlets such as The Guardian, Ms. Magazine, PBS, and NPR and has been translated into several languages, including Cherokee, Gujarati, and Persian. As a librettist/lyricist, she has had works commissioned by Yale University Glee Club and Yale Choral Artists, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Wolf Trap, Aspen Music Festival, the University of Michigan School of Music, and more. A short film based on the titular poem from her collection, I Ate the Cosmos for Breakfast, won the REELpoetry International Film Festival Audience Choice Award and was an official selection for the Trinidad +Tobago Film Festival and The Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival.
