THE FISH

Who was the saint who sent us fishing?
Was it that joker, Peter, bless him?
We – you and me, Piggles – standing
Ungrammatically on Africa,
Doomed to disappointment,
Angling for discomfiture,
As per usual,
Watching our piteous
Float float
Down the excrementitious,
More laxative, surely, than astringent,
Nile River.

Were you still with me when,
Against national
Loddery otts, no, not so much national
Loddery otts, more national
Lottery odds
I caught
The fish,
Or had you already wandered off to wallow
In the all too literal mire?
We took it back in a jam-jar,
The fish not the mire,
To show to the holy bimbi,
Mimi, Fifi, Fatima, Laura with the aura &.co.
All saints, bless them.
It certainly was an underwhelming fish,
An exiguous, shrivelled, rubbery, flexile tiddler.
Little Saint Lolita, bless her,
Fed it to the convent cat.

You laughed!
The only time I caught you at it.
No, really you did.
A kind of unrhythmical, spasmodic squeak.
Still echoing now you’re doornail
Dead and ingested
Mostly.