Aeons ago I was a fish, buoyed in the primal soup,
when life was armoured, spiked and fanged – a gullet poised to swoop;
now I’ve evolved (bipedally) to gather Darwin’s plums
with the opposability of two small hairless thumbs:
and you are asking me to plunge into a smelly pool -
to take my clothes off and cavort? D’you really think it’s cool
to frolic in the cold North Sea with neither bra nor knicker,
having escaped the primal soup (which this is like, but thicker)?
Aeons ago I clambered up the shifting shingle beach
on fins that were developing to grab things out of reach;
now I’ve attained nirvana in a deckchair with a glass,
and I can watch the unevolved committing poolside farce
in little bits of fabric which display their fat so well,
and gambolling in their tooth-dissolving, foetid, germy hell.
Aeons ago I was a fish: now life’s a lot baroquer,
but I am safely home and dry... (except for the rioja)...
Lynn Roberts