BAD FISH
You boiled the bad fish,
sweet jesus, you boiled
the bad fish and now it stinks
all through the curtains
and I’m washing them out
hanging them beside
the kowhai with its long
sulphur tubes, the little feelers
gathered in the mouth
of each flower like sea
anemones and I see
for the first time
the whitey-green pincushion
flowers of the broadleaf
like strange seabed creatures
that twitch fluorescent,
the land and the sea
mirroring each other
so that when a squadron
of gulls drifts over the dump
it’s as if I’m swimming
with the white moon
jellyfish in the dark blue
tank in San Diego
or sitting like sorrow
on a rock in an old-fashioned
diving suit with my big
metal head and bubbles
blobbing up through the grill,
my eyes on the grim city.
From Settler Dreaming, Wellington: Victoria UP, 2001
© Bernadette Hall
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