Tuna

Bluefin; barrel of salt; a barb
hooked to its gape; mouthful

of krill swilled between cheeks,
pooled on the tongue; last feed.

Last of its shoal, which once
blitzed through tides; a force

of tanks, in their element,
each armoured with a skirt

of yellow darts; fins, drawn
to a point like arrowheads.

Silver keg, punctured, drained;
shy organs hauled from flesh,

swollen and scored, the rings
of a fingerprint. Then sea,

the colour of tin; then sky.
Then the whole world tin. 

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Ella Duffy is a London-based poet. Her publication credits include The Rialto, The Poetry Salzburg Review and Pan MacMillan’s anthology Off the Shelf: A Celebration of Bookshops in Verse. She was a runner-up in The Ginkgo Prize for Ecopoetry (2018) and has been shortlisted for The Bridport Prize (2018) and The Aesthetica Creative Writing Award (2018).

Tuna was awarded runner-up in The Ginkgo Prize for Ecopoetry

Twitter: @Els_Duffy