Dear Fish, you swam from life and gave your flesh; forgive me.
In your ice-tomb, your scales a rainbow of tiny glaciers, frozen in flight;
like you, I let myself get caught, sank my heart in a false sea.

The God I know works as a baker in a local shop.
From time to time, I see him feeding the kittens bread crumbs soaked in milk.

Rhubarb after Norman MacCaig And another thing: stop looking like embarrassed celery. It doesn’t suit. How can you stand there, glittery in pink, some of you rigid, some all over the shop? Deep down you’re marooned, a sour forest spilling out beneath a harmful canopy....

You stand behind me / catch my eye / take the snatch of silver

after the accident the plaster
held her still

At boarding school, I had no idea what to do
with myself.  Most of the time,
I hid myself in a paper bag . . .

I arrange my books in order of height,
on a bank of cow parsley,
amid the random oscillations
of a cool breeze

I know others blossom
but I vomit ectoplasm,
and squaring the corners of my bed,
the nurse reminds me I’m not dying.