Goldfish

by Brian Wake

He taps, each morning, on the glass.
I play the fish and dash my skull
against the bowl to demonstrate
an understanding of the indeterminable
lines of little choice.

I try to think that there exists
the perfect possibility of happiness,
and swim to please him, swim to cheer
him up, and also, if the truth were known,
to wear my way out of the bowl.

At breakfast he will contemplate
the pattern of his day. A man, he’ll say,
might find that he is living upside down,
outside the boundaries of love,
and, with his head set firmly in a book
or goldfish bowl, consider separation
as a kiss of glass between us all.

What kind of love is this, I think. We meet
by inference and neither ever sharing space
the same and neither ever able to embrace.

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UK (Liverpool) born Brian Wake has published eight books of poetry over some forty years. He has been published in literary magazines and journals all over the world and has had work broadcast on radio and television for many years. His latest book is ETCETERA – New & Selected Poems (published by Headland Publications in 2011).