Another fish story

by Joan Bond

Caged by wooden beams, then curving bones
you, like the great fish, entombed
in the deep bowels of the world.
Too stubborn to die in the dark soft prison
too tough to be chewed
you, Jonah undigested, were spewed out.
Recalcitrant no longer, a day's journey took
you to Nineveh, obedient to be town crier.
But did you tell the repentant people
how the sea animal was the one
which did as he was told?
Did you confess, with your feet submerged
in dry land, how for three black days and nights
you took fishing lessons . . . from the inside out?

Joan Bond lives in Halifax, N.S.

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