Sleeping with the Fishies: Episode One – Dinner Surprises.

A Serial Poem by Phoebe Hancox

Imagine my utter surprise 

When my dinner began talking to me.

‘Oi Miss!’ it shouted

With a thick bogan accent.

Talking sardines

Were not on my bingo card this year.

Though there I was, barefoot in the kitchen,

Wondering if I was crazy.

‘Sorry to disturb you, Miss!’

The middle fish shouted.

I rolled my eyes – its voice jarred,

And must I say, disturbed I was.

‘We are just as confused as you are’,

The leftmost muttered.

Their glossy eyes darted back and forth

And their jaws clenched.

‘This is what I get for trying fish”,

I huffed to myself.

Fish was not a food I gravited towards,

But my Gym-bro friends had convinced me they were a fix-all.

‘You haven’t tried us yet’,

The rightmost fish quipped.

Silence fell upon the room,

As I contemplated my life.

In the face of the strange situation,

I put the tin down and asked

‘What do you want from me?’

The fish looked at each other.

And so we got to talking,

About ourselves, our experiences,

Our fears, our dreams, our expectations and our goals

I have to say the dreams of a sardine are rather boring.

Finally the night started to take me,

And my eyes were so, so tired.

So I asked the sardines

‘What shall I do with you while I sleep?”

They pondered for a moment,

And poked their heads out of the tin,

Looking for somewhere to sleep.

‘What about with you?’

The horror.

The smelly, oily mess they would surely make.

I screwed up my nose and shook my head.

"I can not sleep with your smell."

But I took pity and relented,

And I placed the tin by my bedside.

They should consider themselves lucky,

That I did not have a pet cat.

Stay tuned for Episode Two of Sleeping with the Fishies!

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