Today I Washed My Hands in a Mucky Koi Pond
Today I washed my hands in a mucky koi pond
and I’ve never felt more clean,
I did not scrub or scald
my palms and wrists and fingers,
no song lingered in my head
telling me when to quit scrubbing,
no bubbles or suds
only silt and mud
and the water was freezing.
Call me thrill-seeker
but the five koi fish needed a bath,
the falling of leaves and the winter’s freeze
were both politely asked if they could leave
because my darling and I had sunshine
a pump and a hose and a plan
and today I washed my hands
where parrotfeathers green sprawling algae vines
intertwined with mine.
Call me brazen but
I changed my jeans into cutoff shorts
my work boots into river shoes
and became a slick fish
Koi Kai
and Peneloped myself into the pond
but I didn’t go there to die,
I walked in to resurrect spring in the water
usher my underwater friends into a new season,
slow and cautionary
my ankles and shins froze,
as my fin(ger)s dove down to the leaves
blanketing black the pond bottom
my hands became wet rakes
grabbing and slopping decaying autumn to shore,
my beloved manned the pump
siphoned half the chilly water out and over the lip to dry land
and today I washed my hands between slippery bright orange fish,
calling them each by name
Rocket
Luna
Goldie
Pinx
and Biggie Stardust.
Call me childish
but with each scoop of leaves I begged to touch them
for them to swim up to me like little dogs
but not being able to clearly see through the water
I jumped back and squealed when
my rake-hands slowly brushed their fish bodies,
we laughed and I smiled wide like a child,
and this type of innocence
is not for most people,
this type of shared tenderness
but today I washed my hands and my feet and my legs
like a little girl splashing and giggling in a muddy puddle.
Call me sentimental
but I get attached,
and when I name something, it becomes mine,
my children of other kingdoms,
and the all-white koi who came to me in a dream
I named Rice Paper,
he vanished in the fall and I thought he was just hiding,
all this time tucked away
because he was just too beautiful
to be bothered by all this winter,
and every day as the weather started warming
I would do a little head count
wishing to find his beautiful white tail
paintbrushing sky reflections
1 2 3 4 5
never 6
and today I washed my hands with a ghost.
I remember us digging this giant hole,
laying the liner
and dragging these stones and boulders
to edge this hope of a new world,
and how we filled it with fresh water
and lilies and dreams that one day in the future
we would sit at our koi pond
and just watch the fish swimming
in infinite patterns of color just under the surface,
and today
the world outside is a different world,
the paradigm of everything we know
is shifting like a rockslide
into a chasm of what we do not know—
but we do know that our koi fish are strong,
the yellow irises on the shore are sprouting mighty and rooted,
a chorus of fat frogs conferences daily on the hot stones
and their pond is friendly and clean,
empty of leaves and muck,
filled with fresh water and joy,
and today I washed my hands in it
over and over again.
and I’ve never felt more clean,
I did not scrub or scald
my palms and wrists and fingers,
no song lingered in my head
telling me when to quit scrubbing,
no bubbles or suds
only silt and mud
and the water was freezing.
Call me thrill-seeker
but the five koi fish needed a bath,
the falling of leaves and the winter’s freeze
were both politely asked if they could leave
because my darling and I had sunshine
a pump and a hose and a plan
and today I washed my hands
where parrotfeathers green sprawling algae vines
intertwined with mine.
Call me brazen but
I changed my jeans into cutoff shorts
my work boots into river shoes
and became a slick fish
Koi Kai
and Peneloped myself into the pond
but I didn’t go there to die,
I walked in to resurrect spring in the water
usher my underwater friends into a new season,
slow and cautionary
my ankles and shins froze,
as my fin(ger)s dove down to the leaves
blanketing black the pond bottom
my hands became wet rakes
grabbing and slopping decaying autumn to shore,
my beloved manned the pump
siphoned half the chilly water out and over the lip to dry land
and today I washed my hands between slippery bright orange fish,
calling them each by name
Rocket
Luna
Goldie
Pinx
and Biggie Stardust.
Call me childish
but with each scoop of leaves I begged to touch them
for them to swim up to me like little dogs
but not being able to clearly see through the water
I jumped back and squealed when
my rake-hands slowly brushed their fish bodies,
we laughed and I smiled wide like a child,
and this type of innocence
is not for most people,
this type of shared tenderness
but today I washed my hands and my feet and my legs
like a little girl splashing and giggling in a muddy puddle.
Call me sentimental
but I get attached,
and when I name something, it becomes mine,
my children of other kingdoms,
and the all-white koi who came to me in a dream
I named Rice Paper,
he vanished in the fall and I thought he was just hiding,
all this time tucked away
because he was just too beautiful
to be bothered by all this winter,
and every day as the weather started warming
I would do a little head count
wishing to find his beautiful white tail
paintbrushing sky reflections
1 2 3 4 5
never 6
and today I washed my hands with a ghost.
I remember us digging this giant hole,
laying the liner
and dragging these stones and boulders
to edge this hope of a new world,
and how we filled it with fresh water
and lilies and dreams that one day in the future
we would sit at our koi pond
and just watch the fish swimming
in infinite patterns of color just under the surface,
and today
the world outside is a different world,
the paradigm of everything we know
is shifting like a rockslide
into a chasm of what we do not know—
but we do know that our koi fish are strong,
the yellow irises on the shore are sprouting mighty and rooted,
a chorus of fat frogs conferences daily on the hot stones
and their pond is friendly and clean,
empty of leaves and muck,
filled with fresh water and joy,
and today I washed my hands in it
over and over again.
Kai Coggin is the author of three full-length poetry collections PERISCOPE HEART (Swimming with Elephants 2014), WINGSPAN (Golden Dragonfly Press 2016), and INCANDESCENT (Sibling Rivalry Press 2019), as well as a spoken word album SILHOUETTE (2017). She is a queer woman of color who thinks Black lives matter, a teaching artist in poetry with the Arkansas Arts Council, and the host of the longest running consecutive weekly open mic series in the country—Wednesday Night Poetry. Recently named “Best Poet in Arkansas” by the Arkansas Times, her fierce and powerful poetry has been nominated three times for The Pushcart Prize, as well as Bettering American Poetry 2015, and Best of the Net 2016 and 2018. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Cultural Weekly, Entropy, NELLE, Sinister Wisdom, Calamus Journal, Lavender Review, Luna Luna, Blue Heron Review, Yes, Poetry and elsewhere. Coggin is Associate Editor at The Rise Up Review. She lives with her wife and their two adorable dogs in the valley of a small mountain in Hot Springs National Park, Arkansas.
Art: Collage / Molly Dunham