The Academi Cardiff International Poetry Competition

William Hampton

The Twenty Second Memory of Goldfish

We alert though thrive with parkinsons.
We know enough for our short lives.
We utterly unsentimental can and will turn cannibal.
We open mouth like cat-walk models.
We content to rapid at your manna food.
We round and round the elementary.
We gloat over our ingot scales.
We hypnotise and lull your ante rooms.
We living organism decorate them liquidly.
We carp but shrunken down from 30lbs.
We culinary porn for peckish cats.
We solitary plastic-bagged in gypsy fairs yet prosper.

We you rarely differentiate between us.
We forget your fish-eye lensed Easter island faces.

William Hampton was born in Salford, Lancashire. His work has appeared in various magazines, most recently ’Boomerang’ and the website devoted to ’Plumlive’. He lives in Colchester and works for Scope, the charity for people with cerebral palsy.