Preparing Fish
I have lived inland all my life,
got no further than sticklebacks
glowering in jars,
never once ate trout.
Here in my new kitchen
this strange fish slips from my grip,
slithers and slaps against the sink.
It smells of foreign things.
The loose scales must be scraped away.
I curse as, sliding, it escapes again.
But soon the sink begins to fill
with pieces of silver,
sequins sail its lake, starbursts
hammer its surface to a shimmer.
I scoop one gently on a fingertip:
it clings, and winks and winks with light.
When you walk in – starving, as you say –
you find me lining out frail specks
of starlight on the drainer’s edge.
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Gill McEvoy is a poet with determination, if not always the energy! With friends she runs Zest!, a quarterly Open Floor Poetry Night in Chester. She and Judy Ugonna run workshops (Poem Catchers). She also runs The Poem Shed, a workshop group, and a poetry reading group “The Golden Pear”. She has published 2 pamphlets “Uncertain Days” and “A Sampler”, (Happenstance Press, 2006, 2008) and a full collection “The Plucking Shed” (Cinnamon Press, 2010).
Occasionally she blogs at redbotinki.blogspot.com.
Website Poem Catchers
Abegail Morley 