VIKING, FORTIES, CROMARTY
This is the North Sea
a sort of wet larder
in winter a liquid deep freeze
FORTH, TYNE, DOGGER
Here the scale nations shoal
their lives a cold storage
till they're wrenched
onto deck by the net
and dumped, wetly gasping
suffocating
on an Aberdeen or South Shields
dockside to stare
accusing
from the marble slab
FISHER, GERMAN BIGHT
Easy to think they're fish-brained
utterly stupid
no intelligence shows
in the eyes of a dead fish
the reel stopped
in the terror
of last panicky slither
HUMBER, THAMES, DOVER, WIGHT
The Channel affords no escape—
birds eat them
seals eat them
we eat them
and they—
they eat each other.
In this the sea knows
no more justice
than the land
PORTLAND, PLYMOUTH, BISCAY
You could say
they are our cousins
a tenous link, I know
but still blood-related
we, too
crawled from the sea
shed our scales
and grew legs
traded in gills for lungs
during the Devonian
a long time ago
TRAFALGAR, FINISTERRE
Fillet your cousin.
Brush with lightly beaten egg
and roll in oats—
the instant porridge kind will do.
Fry on both sides till golden brown,
and serve with nephews in their jackets
and aunt on the cob.
SOLE, LUNDY, FASTNET, IRISH SEA
Those in peril on the sea
should pray
not to Jehovah
or the Christian god of mercy
but to the great finned shark-toothed spirit
Devourer and Devoured
the fish totem.
This is a cannibal feast
we all eat our ancestors
somehow
SHANNON, ROCKALL, MALIN
And our ancesters somehow
eat us.
The Atlantic will gape its granite
jaws and gulp down
the sacrificial high priests
of fish religion
afterwards spitting out
the splintered bones
of trawler and drifter
HEBRIDES, MINCHES, BAILEY
Oh it's cold in the guts of the fish
cold and dark
we bump around with the dismembered bodies
of fishermen sailors and priests
dragged down as tribute
and to be food for the new creation
in the belly
of our dark heaving Mother
the deep Sea
FAIRISLE, FAROES, SOUTH-EAST ICELAND
Mother we are roe!
Spawned in millions
and only briefly glued to the rock
we are caviar to the world
the world will eat us!
But if we live until we’re born
we'll be trawled up
from our childhood
gutted, split
and sold with white sauce
in cardboard cartons
from supermarket freezers
and finally
lying baked on the plate
the lidded eyes of a cousin
will regard us
without recognition.
Before reaching for the knife.
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