Walking on the Walls

by Amanda Dombrowski

The walls creak with fear,
with each step that is taken.
The wallpaper is peeling below,
like a snake shedding its skin.
The crystal chandelier is beaming with light,
like the sun shining in your eyes.

As you walk swiftly across the wall,
it is like walking on water.
Your legs trembling with fright,
Thinking you might fall,
But you are safe.

It is like you are in control.
You can see everything from where you are.
But oh, that we could really walk up there…

Sleeping on the Ceiling

by Elizabeth Bishop

It is so peaceful on the ceiling!
It is the Place de la Concorde.

The little crystal chandelier
Is off, the fountain is in the dark.
Not a soul is in the park.

Below, where the wallpaper is peeling, the Jardin des Plantes has its gates.
Those photographs are animals.
The mighty flowers and foliage rustle;
Under the leaves the insects tunnel.

We must go under the wallpaper
To meet the insect-gladiator
To the battle with a net and trident
And leave the fountain and the square.
But oh, that we could sleep up there…

The Toad

By-Amanda Dombrowski

I caught a large toad
I held it tightly while it screamed for help
It squirmed around in my hand,
trying hard to escape.
Its heart beat quickly with fear.
Its skin was scaly like and alligator’s back
It was green with big spots,
like ancient wall paper
It had long legs like a snakes body.
Its body was cold and moist
because of the water he was in
I looked into its eyes
Which were far smaller than mine
and shallower, and yellowed
Its eyes were telling me to let him go
I kept holding on to its tiny body.
The longer I held it, the calmer it became.
Its body became warm like a roasted marshmallow.
His little round eyes started at me,
like I had something odd on my face.
It was time to let him go.
I placed him gently on the grass.
He hopped away as fast as if he was running a race
And then he was gone.

The Fish

By Elizabeth Bishop

I caught a tremendous fish
and held him beside the boat
half out of water with my hook
fast in a corner of his mouth.
He didn’t fight.
He hadn’t fought at all.
He hung a grunting weight
battered and venerable
and homely. Here and there
his brown skin hung in strips
like ancient wallpaper
and its pattern of darker brown
was like wallpaper:
shapes like full-blown roses
stained and lost through age.
He was speckled and barnacles
fine rosettes of lime and infested

with tiny sea-lice
and underneath two or three
rags of green weed hung down.
While his gills were breathing in
the terrible oxygen
--the frightening gills
fresh and crisp with blood
that can cut so badly--
I thought of the coarse flesh
packed in like feathers
the big bones and the little bones
the dramatic reds and
of his shiny entrails
and the pink swim-bladder
like a big peony.
I looked into his eyes
which were far larger than mine
but shallower and blueed
the irises backed and packed
with tarnished tinfoil
seen through the lenses
of old scratched isinglass.
They shifted a little but not
to return my stare.
--It was more like the tipping
of an object toward the light.
I admired his sullen face
the mechanism of his jaw
and then I saw
that from his lower lip
--if you could call it a lip
grim wet and weaponlike
hung five old pieces of fish-line
or four and a wire leader
with the swivel still attached
with all their five big hooks
grown firmly in his mouth.
A green line frayed at the end
where he broke it two heavier lines
and a fine thread
still crimped from the strain and snap
when it broke and he got away.
Like medals with their ribbons
frayed and wavering
a five-haired beard of wisdom
trailing from his aching jaw.

I stared and stared
and victory filled up
the little rented boat
from the pool of bilge
where oil had spread a rainbow
around the rusted engine
to the bailer rusted orange
the sun-cracked thwarts
the oarlocks on their strings
the gunnels--until everything
was rainbow rainbow rainbow!
And I let the fish go.