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Matthew Griffiths
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Cod Philosophy
Ice drops as quickly as any shoal
when light punches a hole through water.
Swim my sons, swim daughters, swim small fry
of indeterminate gender. Brine does strange things
up here, the sea twitches its fingers. You wouldn’t believe
that those who conceived of our mothers
below ice floes above us once thought
that hangweed scooped, caught and lifted
us into a saltless and sifted up there,
expanding our brains with air to show us a face
it called sun. We know our place, we know this sun feeds
our own menu, the plankton and weeds. Keep your eyes
either side of you, fry, all the same,
don’t rise beyond the main’s middle – remember
we are small in number but once we were many.
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