Friday, May 18, 2018

Fish and refugees


The bald heads bobbed above the standard seats
Like toffee apples in a bowl on Halloween
“I'm shipping the chest freezer all the way over”
“All the way over!”
“All the way over. Shipping's cheap.”

“I was a child in the Isle of Mann
It's their fault for having open borders
All the way to over there.”
“I know about the EU” he said
“We have an agreement with the French”
37,000ft in the air.

“Do you know how many people died on Thailand's roads this month?”
He asked, almost accusatory.
“How old is yours?”
“36”
“You don't smoke”
“No”
“No”
“Not anymore”
“And how old are you now?”

“We can have the fish”
“You can't just fish more fish there are scientists”
“Scientists give our fish to the Spanish.”

Fish is 0.5% of GDP
97% of migrants are not refugees
This I didn't share, lean in, intervene
From my chair, given that obviously,
Small changes can cause chaos
In a complex system
And at the time we were all 37,000ft in the air.

“I haven't done as well as some of my friends
From the Grammar. Secondary Modern?”
The other nods
And I don't blame my father” to strangers
37,000ft in the air
With no mention of the City, or pensions, tax
Empire, sunset havens, their asylum.
“but you want to know what went wrong of course”
The man from the Isle of Mann agreed.
And they talked fish and refugees.

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