Fish

by M. V. WILLIAMS

 

These are the half-dead fish,

stargazy mouths agape,

all washed up in white wrappings;

their stiff and soundless jaws are moving,

flashing their hazardous teeth.

 

They thrash sometimes, in extremis.

 

These fish have swallowed hooks

that tear at their gills' lining.

Their thin, white, what-were-hands,

are useless fins now, clutching the soil of sheets,

beached on the beige lino.

 

Drip-fed and drain-emptied, there they lie,

filletted on the gurney's slab, under a bright light;

under a notice saying: 'Nil By Mouth' and

'Do Not Resuscitate.'

 

These poor fish once had names,

mouths filled with love and wonder,

swam nobly with the stars,

lest we forget.

Lest we forget.

 

 

‘Fish’ won the first prize in The Psychiatry Research Trust Poetry Competition 2012.

 

About the poet

 

Mary Valentine Williams has worked in Mental Health and allied fields most of her life, having failed to keep order as a teacher and bored to tears by banking, her first two career choices. Always a scribbler, Mary gained a late MA in Creative Writing at Edge Hill and was then commissioned to write two self-help books for Sheldon (SPCK).  This helped her to decide to pursue writing as a career, but in filling in the gaps she has also been a foster parent, market trader and craft worker. Her last proper job was as a University staff counsellor.

Published in many poetry anthologies and winner of several prizes last year, Mary keeps tabs on the Liverpool poets she met while on her MA, and helps run a writers’ and poets’ group in her home town. She is a member of the Keele Poets’ Group at Silverdale. When not at her computer or kitchen sink, she can be found on her allotment or in the local flea market. Married with four adult sons, she and her husband now live in Shropshire in an inconvenient cottage full of paintings by friends and family members, with a well under the living room floor, and try valiantly to stop the garden getting into the house.

Mary has also published three novels, numerous short stories in the ‘dark fiction’ genre, erotica and memoirs. She also writes under her middle name of Valentine Williams.

Gold / Illusion / The Poltergeist / Massacre in Houla / Fish