(Love Song, With Two Goldfish)

Singaporean journalist and poet Grace Chua invites readers to consider some fundamental questions about love and relationships with her poem, “(love song, with two goldfish).” First published in Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, Vol. 2, No. 2 in January 2003, the poem charts the decline of a relationship between a male and a female goldfish who live in a fishbowl. In the poem, Chua raises questions about love and romance, questioning why we express romantic interest in others and drawing attention to the ways we express such feelings.

Poet Biography

Singaporean writer Grace Chua was born in 1984. She earned a dual degree in English Literature and Psychology from Dartmouth College in 2007 and a Masters in Science Writing from MIT in 2008. In her writing, she often makes scientific and technical information accessible for non-expert readers.

Chua currently works as the Content Director for Kite Insights, a research & communications company dedicated to helping businesses make ethical choices. She previously worked as the environment and science correspondent for Singaporean newspaper The Straits Times.

Her first poetry collection, The Stamp Collector’s Wife, premiered in 2010. As well, her works appears in The Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, the From Boys to Men anthology, MĀNOA: A Pacific Journal of International Writing, Junoesq, and SOFTBLOW.

Chua won the SEC-CDL Environmental Journalist of the Year Award in 2012 and a Siemens Green Technology Journalism Award in 2013 (“Grace Chua.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company). She lives and works in Quincy, Massachusetts.

Poem Text

Chua, Grace. “(love song, with two goldfish).” 2003. Quarterly Literary Review Singapore.

Summary

The poem begins with a description of a male goldfish in a goldfish bowl. The speaker describes him as “a drifter, always / floating around” (Lines 1-2) the female goldfish who shares his fishbowl. According to the speaker, he longs for his female companion to sing and hopes that she will “notice” (Line 5) him.

In the second stanza, the speaker describes the female goldfish, who engages in flirtatious behavior with the male goldfish within the confines of their fishbowl. She returns the male goldfish’s interest, making “fish eyes” (Line 8) and “kissy lips” (Line 9) at him, finding the male goldfish charming.

The third stanza resumes the speaker’s focus on the male goldfish, revealing his excitement over the fact that the female goldfish has taken an interest in him. Her interest inspires the male goldfish to imagine a future together, and the speaker explains that the male goldfish “would / take her to the ocean” (Lines 12-13), where they “would share / their deepest secrets” (Lines 14-15).

The tone of the poem changes in the fourth stanza when the speaker reveals that the female goldfish’s love for the male goldfish has “gone belly-up” (Line 18). Her rejection of the male goldfish causes the male goldfish to “drown those sorrows” (Lines 21) and to stare out the bowl “emptily” (Line 21).

The fifth stanza is the briefest of all the stanzas in the poem, and, according to the speaker, the female goldfish ended the romance because she desired “a life / beyond / the (bowl)” (Lines 25-27) and the male goldfish is unable to provide an escape from the fishbowl.