Pools Of Fish (Poem)

for Deanna Rodger.

No one is lonelier than the fisherman and his boat.

The fisherman was mending his boat when he heard about the smiling fish.

“They swim in shoals near the caves,” said a bearded man to his friend, “most of them are silvery blue but the special ones are half green, half gold, you catch em’, they grant wishes”.

The fisherman had never heard of smiling fish so he took his boat to the caves to investigate. He sat for hours and caught fish that weren’t smiling; they all had that familiar droopy fish expression.

Night came when the fisherman spotted a white circle on the black water. “Just moonlight” he thought and made a joke with his boat about fishing for it. He threw his line out and felt a bite.

He reeled in a silver-blue sliver of moonlight and only saw it was a fish when it slopped on the floor of his boat. The fisherman looked and saw it smiling.

“Wow”, said the fisherman, “they exist”

He leaned over the side of his boat, his eyes filling with the moonlight fish.

The fisherman fished, reeling in fish after fish, as his hope grew brighter to find the one that grants a wish.

He threw his last line into sleepy water, ” I just want one” said the fisherman to his boat.

His line tugged and he pulled up a fish, green-gold iridescent glow over the darkness of the sea. It’s smile stretched across both sides of its head. “This is it!” thought the fisherman “this fish grants wishes!”

He kept the fish in a fishbowl and sailed home wondering what to wish for.

The fisherman tied up his boat, put the fishbowl under his arm and walked home from the harbour. It was a three-mile walk through town.  As he walked he saw a man sat down in an ally between the closed shops. The fisherman saw his streetlamp lit face, his blue eyes looked like sad swimming pools.

“That’s it!” said the fisherman holding up the fishbowl. “I wish no one was lonely”

The next day the fisherman woke to a gold sun that swam in the skies blue waves. 

As he strolled back into town he saw him, the man from last night, sat in the same spot, alone in the alleyway, now next to open doors, his eyes brimming swimming pools full of smiling fish.