This deep-sea fish is as black as its home

that lies a kilometre under

in a freezing silence of pressure

where no light arrives. There, the creature

lived in a network of fleeting events,

a twitching skin of blind nuances

and occasional illumination

which it must have seen only dimly.

 

No one knows why the fish left that place

and rose through the divisions of darkness

towards the pale, entranced light,

and then the jostling colours, of the surface.

By then, its universe has drained away,

leaving a void in which it is helpless

and dies, after the faintest glimpse of this

brilliantly clear, poisoned, shrunken world.

 

S.C. Flynn was born in a small town in Australia of Irish
origin and now lives in Dublin. His collection The Colour of
Extinction (Renard Press, October 2024) was The Observer Poetry Book
of the Month. An Ocean Called Hope (Downingfield Press, May 2025) is
forthcoming. His poetry has been published in more than a hundred
magazines around the world. He has been highly commended in the
Erbacce Prize and nominated for Best of the Net. He has very recently
given readings at the Waterford Gallery of Art, Ardgillan Castle and
Notre Dame University.