Greed probably undid her in the end.
She was said to have taken a bait of uncooked tiger nuts,
which swelled inside her until she floated upwards.
Telltale empty paper bags were found on the bank of the river.
Or she may have been pregnant,
with 300,000 eggs causing complications, or stressed
after so much catching and releasing,
those constant brushes with extinction.
On the line between life and death, at Kingfisher Lake,
she breathed the fatal air and did not sink again.
And there she lay,
like Wisdom drawn up from the deep:
as golden, and as quiet.
(From the obituary of Benson, England’s best loved fish. Submitted by Mat Riches)
Verbatim Poetry 