“SEMANTIC HUNGER” by Kenton K. Yee

It floats tonight 
 	       inside my head,
arousing insomnia,    
 
phobias, stubborn bottled-
      ketchup boredom 
despite my investment in pills.
 
By morning it’s become 
a golden, lumpy,
bulbous branchiate—fancy-fin pet   
 
in a rotund bowl, aloof 
                droopy-eyed feline fish.
For decades now I’ve hushed 
 
its muffled murmurs as if 
each grumble were  
a pinscher growling at the mailman
 
or a river overflowing 
its levee, washing away
my quay. But the bowl fish,
 
stressing about its aerator kaput
   in yet another blackout, 
kisses the meniscus open-mouthed, 
 
gills paddling, wondering, Will 
           today’s mail be spam and bills
or language from a friend?

Kenton K. Yee’s recent poems appear (or will soon) in Plume Poetry, Threepenny Review, Constellations, TAB Journal, I-70 Review, Hawaii Pacific Review, Terrain.org, Sugar House Review, McNeese Review, and Rattle, among others. Kenton holds a PhD from UCLA and law and business degrees from Stanford. He writes from Northern California.