The Invisible Circumference Poem by Matthew Coombe

It feels that so much time lies ahead of
me that the only image that comes to
mind is a fishbowl filled to the brim with
brightly coloured marbles. It’s last owners

flick their tails and glide silently into
open water. For too long I have been
the marble buried in the centre of
the bunch, the one gasping for air but not

able to kick to the surface. I have
also been the fish patrolling the wide,
invisible circumference, watching
the multicoloured gravel scroll beneath

my belly on a never ending loop.
And tonight the house is quiet, save for
the sound of the clock ticking beneath the
mirror - a sound I did not know it made –

now a tut of distain that can only
be meant for me. No tonight is not the
night I had planned. The ink is loaded in
the barrel of the pen like a bullet

but you just cannot shoot pool with a jump
rope. I intended these words to circle
the skies, to rise on warm thermal drifts and
then vanish like the silver bubbles in

a champagne flute. So I will sit here like
the fisherman’s float, and wait for the time
when I am twitched once and then dragged
beneath the surface.