for Kevin Brophy
ideas grow like goldfish
in proportion to the space they are given
you return home from your morning swim
still dripping from professor to friend, breakfast
begins slowly, questions are like muesli, managed
carefully at the kitchen table, believing in seeds
we commit to chewing, holding our spoons like pens
you consider me a poet and I emerge, still rough
after crashing in your spare room, studying the yard
your familiar themes—lemons, pigeons—the cats
pawing at the surface of your garden pond until
you spray them over the fence, a loaded water pistol
at the window sill—silence circles around again
tempted, I imagine you are partly feline, inquisitive
inscrutable, mischievous, your tail curling up like
a question mark, rising with the thrill of potential
so I shoot you at the pond because you ask me to
crouching like that at the edge, fishing for a symbol
as if to divulge this final ordeal of my training
or you are simply watching the goldfish swim
or I shoot you just for fun, we open our mouths
to a pool of silence, my friend, the idea
becoming
(Artwork: ‘White Horse’ by Miles Allinson)