The Anchovy

The Anchovy

as it slips past your lip
a twitch
a dart from fingers
a frantic thrashing
and before you
down it goes

an instinctive explorer
heading inwards
into those dark belly pools
filled with memories of past
meals and half-digested
lines of poetry

perhaps it will stop there
providing you with its small
supply of imagery
fuel for a minor allusion
or tidy metaphor

or maybe it's compelled
deeper into your marrow
where it can grow
nibbling on old lovers
or scenes from childhood

on this rich sustenance
it might swell to the length
of an arm or longer
a serpent weaving
around your core until

it begins to express
in certain outward signs
certain manifestations
a nervous tic maybe or writing
some impenetrable poem

of course, by that point
you've already eaten
another hundred beings or so
all within you teeming away
in such vast and radiant schools