Sea Encounter Poem by Naveed Akram

I caught a massive shark
and kept it beside the raft
half out of the nightmare waters
with its head dangling from the
hook.
It gaped at me and didn’t attack.
It didn’t even flinch, or roar -
It was silent as a shark.
It desired life with its weight
Being big and bigger,
Thrashed and assaulted
by the sea creatures. Where are
the other fish? In the sea
where they dashed and whirled
and slept. This one
has now ended like a ghost.
The other fish do not mind:
It is covered with ruined scales,
Hard and close-packed.
Its gills were consuming
the abhorrent oxygen
- the scaly gills,
exhilarating with blood,
that can damage us somehow -
I wondered of the flesh,
rubbery and not fleshy like other fishes
Of the deep blue sea.
I wondered of the different skeleton,
That dinosaur skeleton,
the colours that were the same,
the same colours that would permeate it.
Eyes were no goodness, but
Evil was their intention.
It lunged -
I don’t know how!
Perhaps the flip would drag me under,
And keep me busy paddling
Enough to sink me down
And devour me.
But I was wise and wary
To survive the whole encounter.