Poem 188

If asked for my favourite animal now I’m more likely to say the red panda …

( I like the image of fish as the ever moving colours of a kaleidoscope, and birds on perches like the beads of an abacus, and the half-rhyme on dinner and prisoners … )

Catching Silver

I want to know if the zoo has otters
or I won't go
I despise chimpanzees
and their boredom
fish interest me only as long
as a kaleidoscope
birds slightly longer
    an abacus perhaps
the rest I find
great and sad

but behind the double glass go the otters
catching silver underwater in their fur
pounding up and down the scrubbed concrete beach
glands full of enthusiasm
wild about dinner crazy for life
model prisoners