The Secret Life Of Doctor Fish (Poetry)

Beneath the prim and starched white coat
behind the grey soul-searching eyes
a shoal of secrets bob and float
as tides within her fall and rise

A cloud around her hints of brine
and pallid skin so cool to touch
her blue-black hair combed neat and fine
low voice melodic soothes as much

as any drug that drowns the pain
her patients sit and wait their turn
while some are never seen again
no questions asked — no real concern

Her surgery kept calm and dim
to lull anxiety and fear
encouraging each mind to swim
and find an island anchored near

Her chair a smooth and glistening rock
a shaft of light pooled on the floor
the sands of time a silent clock
drift soft against her sea-washed door

Then after everyone has gone
she peels the white coat from her tail
runs a salt bath — wallows long
and soaks each dried-out flaking scale

She dreams of beaches wild with spray
her sisters singing up a storm
poor wretched sailors easy prey
for heartless witches ocean-born

Down and down they drag those men
into that long sea-bedded sleep
doomed to never wake again
their graves a thousand fathoms deep

She smiles a predatory smile
blows bubbles ... makes a mermaid’s wish
picks her next victim from the file
for few resist when Doctor Fish

beckons — casts her ancient spell
tried and tested — Death’s the cure
for all that ails and who’s to tell
her nature or her strange allure?