V an Aquarium
Streaks of green and yellow iridescence,Silver shiftings,Rings veering out of rings,Silver—gold—Grey-green opaqueness sliding down,With sharp white bubblesShooting and dancing,Flinging quickly outward.Nosing the bubbles,Swallowing them,Fish.Blue shadows against silver-saffron water,The light rippling over themIn steel-bright tremors.Outspread translucent finsFlute, fold, and relapse;The threaded light prints through them on the pebblesIn scarcely tarnished twinklings.Curving of spotted spines,Slow up-shifts,Lazy convolutions:Then a sudden swift straighteningAnd darting below:Oblique grey shadowsAthwart a pale casement.Roped and curled,Green man-eating eelsSlumber in undulate rhythms,With crests laid horizontal on their backs.Barred fish,Striped fish,Uneven disks of fish,Slip, slide, whirl, turn,And never touch.Metallic blue fish,With fins wide and yellow and swayingLike Oriental fans,Hold the sun in their belliesAnd glow with light:Blue brilliance cut by black bars.An oblong pane of straw-coloured shimmer,Across it, in a tangent,A smear of rose, black, silver.Short twists and upstartings,Rose-black, in a setting of bubbles:Sunshine playing between red and black flowersOn a blue and gold lawn.Shadows and polished surfaces,Facets of mauve and purple,A constant modulation of values.Shaft-shaped,With green bead eyes;Thick-nosed,Heliotrope-coloured;Swift spots of chrysolite and coral;In the midst of green, pearl, amethyst irradiations.
Outside,A willow-tree flickersWith little white jerks,And long blue wavesRise steadily beyond the outer islands.