to Elizabeth Bishop

You caught a fish then let it go.

In between the wallpaper caught me,

and lines like military ribbons hanging

from its lip.

You put your fish deep inside;

a thought fish in my mind’s keeping,

quantum fish:

in the water, on the page, behind my eyes.

You caught it beneath a fine-ground lens,

so I could see it,

spooled it out from the nib of your pen

without a struggle.

One of those rainbows 

I cannot let go.