Eels
Anguilla anguilla

I wrote a metaphor using eel
for blue-light reflections in water
on a flooded motorway
and mentioned glittering scales.

My writing group said skin
which didn’t have the same feel
for an ambulance’s race
seen through windscreen blurs.

The only time I’ve seen an eel –
it was grey and jellied
at a West Ham fan’s wedding
breakfast – I didn’t eat any.

Mucus skin and memory
of a Fenland writer’s poems
about a stepfather who farmed them,
or fished them, in one-way-in-

no-way-out willow baskets.
She used eel as a metaphor
for a claustrophobic landscape
and feeling trapped.

Sue Spiers works with Winchester Poetry Festival and is working her fourth collection through potential publishers, and there’s a fifth on the way.  More here: www.spiropoetry.com