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Painting by Paul Brent


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In the dining room
there is a brown fish
hanging on the wall who swims along
in his frame while
we are eating dinner.

He swims in candlelight for all to see,
as if he has been swimming forever,
even in the darkness of the ink
before someone thought

to draw him and the thin reeds waving
in his stream and the clear pebbles
strewn upon the sand.
No wonder he continues his swimming

deep into the night,
long after we have
blown out the candles
and gone upstairs to bed.
No wonder I find him
in the pale morning

light, still swimming,
still looking out at me
with his one, small,
spellbound eye.


Billy Collins

Posted over on Poetry Foundation