Juvenile Tuna

Those poor
Juvenile tuna
Taunted by promise
Gentle threat of food
Larking and fighting
Flying squiggles
Those poor juvenile tuna
Had no chance
Against the mighty
Sandpapered wedge jaws
And never had a chance
To be juvenile
After that.

O curious capon,
Provider of the
Poeltry in my heart,
Why do you fascinate
My grey matter
Like an irritate
On my skin?
Mother Courage would
Sell her soul for you,
I might sell my hair
To meet you,
To know what you look like.
I would not enjoy
Seeing you stuffed
As I have seen so many others
But maybe you should
Stay, as fuzzy,
In my brain
As my great friend
The dodo,
And those juvenile tuna.

And that ponderous
Fish with a human head
Caught at Ellenbogen
(In the vicinity of Copenhagen)
In 1546.
Moaning in fear
Through mouth and gills
At seeing
Small crowd
Who don't swim away
In fear and disgust,
But remain still,
With those same open mouths.
A luzzling in his throat
As he tried to give away feelings
Of not belonging
Anywhere.
His fish lungs swamped with
Clean and grass unfamiliar
This strange newness
Which is not water
Touching his scales.
Are there more like he,
Loitering on the seabed
At Dungeness
Under the shadow of
The mighty maw of
The power station
Or frightened to come
To the surface
In the wetlands
Of East Anglia?
I would like to
Teach them to speak
And to not be afraid