Mavis Green
Fish
When the neighbours go away
you feed their fish,
great koi carp
worth several hundred pounds.
Your daughter loves to watch
the savage threshing.
Last year disaster struck -
someone stole the lot.
You had the works - police, the press -
her refusing food.
When the neighbours came back home
the koi carp reappeared
rising one by one;
all staring up
all absolutely still
except for thick lips slowly lifted
sucking the surface air.
You laugh, say you can’t get over it.
And the sleep you lost.
I ask how is your girl.
Not good, but all the beds are full.
(My neighbour says you’ve had ten years
of keeping her alive,
since she was seventeen).
She hardly ever sleeps.
Some nights you find her
underneath her bed
sucking at the metal frame
slow and rhythmic
fluttering her hands.
Page(s) 55
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