Ongoing #44/Harrow Daily Poem #1

This I year I am temporarily merging two of my poetry projects. I will be doing a poem a day from my room in Harrow but it will be doubling up as the next poem in my Ongoing sequence. If you have no idea what I am talking about (in either case) I suggest you waste an afternoon reading the other entries in this blog. The ones from around a year ago would be a good place to  start.

And first up therefore, by a curious serendipity, we have a poem relevant to a conversation last year when people flat out refused to believe that I have seen invisible fishes when swimming in the Philippines. The next doodle in the book for "Ongoing" shows an empty fish tank.

The Return of the Invisible Fish

Look, there in the tank.
Look, there by the bubbles.
If you look closely, then you will see
The hint of a spine
And a motionless hole,
Shaped like a fish, where a fish ought to be.
And there in that hole,
There in that space,
Look closer for traces of what's hiding there.
Could that be an eye?
Could that be a heart?
An invisible fish? Well, I declare!
There in the corner!
And there by the castle!
And under the rocks, in the shade of that hole!
Could that be another?
Another? Another?
The aquarium's full, an invisible shoal.
"But why," asks the child
"Have invisible fish?
Surely a goldfish is better to own.
What is the point
If no one can see them?"
"You'll understand better," I say, "When you're grown."