Byron is dying again.

 

We name all the fish Byron,

so when he dies,

it’s always Byron,

dying again.

 

Each time his color pales,

his fins droop, and he looks tired—

weary of life & done

with swimming in a bowl,

 

ready instead to drift

gently toward the bottom

and rest,

just rest.

 

But this dying Byron

perches near the top.

He adjusts his body on an artificial leaf

& takes smalls sips of air.

 

It’s a kind of magic

how some fish have learned

to breathe air and water,

both.

 

Byron is miraculously old.

He was with us through the pandemic,

& I have secretly begun to imagine him immortal—

a protective, piscine power.

 

I chart the progress:

He has stopped eating.

He is resting on his leaf.

I don’t think it will be long now.

 

I consider clove oil, the gentle death.

It’s right there on YouTube—

how to euthanize a fish.

I ask my husband about the oil.

 

He says, Byron has always died on his own terms.

 

So I leave the cloves in the cabinet,

make sure the water is fresh, the bowl clean.

At sundown, I set a steel strainer in the sink

to wait another night

 

while we drift to sleep,

stars above us like a sea.