Coffee-Carp
How did they
manage
to make this coffee
taste of fish?
I complained
in the uniquely
english way
that makes it sound
as if it’s
all my fault
but they
understood
and asked if
I could
keep a secret before
taking me round
back to a
swimming pool
of liquid in such
brown quantities
that I almost
threw up. One
of them
patted me
on the back
then reached
with their
other hand
into the pool
and appeared
to tickle something,
a something
that became
a fish-shaped ripple,
the ripple,
a fish, six
metres long
two metres wide:
the largest and
most awake
looking carp
I’d ever seen,
glossy with
caffeine sweats,
its saucer eyes
staring into the state
of being that lies
beyond the manic.
I tutted gently
and realised
that it
would take
the whole
next month
for me to decide
how I felt about this.
James Coghill has had poems published in The Cadaverine and Popshot Magazine. He is quietly working on a number of projects, not all of which involve animals (some involve cinemas and insects also).