Anemones are coy

The night after I had been dreaming of tropical fish
in eighties corporate fishtanks,
I woke up with my skull as tight
as a buoy. I spent the day bobbing
between bed and toilet bowl,
throwing up with tidal regularity.
Safe in the deep sea sheen
of a Beechams overdose,
I went to learn about talloscopes,
thunder sheets and green leads bunched up like seaweed.
We looked out at the stage, through the glass.
Actors swam past in a bluey glaze.
"It's like being in a submarine," I told
the technician. Then: "Ultrasound was first used in World War II
to locate submerged objects."