Published in The Lake (https://www.thelakepoetry.co.uk/poetry-archive/oct23a/)
DIANNA MACKINNON HENNING
Fish Hatchery
My but we were lovely, captives
and all. Each day the witch
would dress us up. She was keeping us
for herself. And we kept to the fish-
hatchery, where shadows stacked
their troubled hieroglyphs. We read
the ripples in water-filled tank
where multitudes of fingerlings
thinned to nearly nothing. Each
day the witch would dress us up, twist
our hair into ringlets, bangs pinched back
with plastic barrettes. Oh, we were lovely
until we held our own, asserting no more
taffeta dresses, no more ringlets,
our arms across our chests in defiance,
my foot booting the cat.