​Clara Peeters' Husband, by Joanna Doris Brown

Still Life of Fish and Cat, by Clara Peeters (Belgium) c. 1620s

​Clara Peeters' Husband

Sometimes her husband wishes he were a fish’s scale, roof thatch, or fingernail.
Other times, he wonders what it would be like to ride the eel uncoiled.
 
The cat is frozen, holding the fish, hungry eyes obsidian-- 
fading prey tallow, tail pink like an oil pool. 
 
The cat could not have stayed still for long.
She must have remembered his possessive stare, his tense whiskers, 
 
markings like hieroglyphs. The feline prowls webby corners, 
graphite nooks—his intentions a dank cipher, other than to pounce and eat.
 
Since when was a colander a place for seafood? 
This basin for draining, rinsing.  
 
Usually it’s fruit, some ripe and rank, grapes shriveling on the stem. 
The husband feels as though he’s decomposing-- 
 
months away at sea, trading for spices and less savory treasures.
Did the fish scream when the cat clawed?
 
We muse about what we missed.
We require rinsing, pruning.

Joanna Doris Brown

Joanna Doris Brown has published poetry in such journals as Chiron Review, Earth's Daughters, Eclectica Magazine, Gertrude, and in her chapbook, The Gilded Flicker, with Finishing Line Press. She works as an adolescent medicine physician and can be found caring for patients at a community clinic or spending time with her spouse and two teen children.