Nicola Healey

Deep-Sea Fish

There is no light here,
where Hatchetfish, Sawtail, Bristlemouth
and the nameless drift;
it’s an abyss.

With no need of sight,
some have no eyes. Some have skin
so thin, you can see their insides.
Poor Viperfish can never close his mouth
over his fangs; they overhang
like a portcullis gate.

The baleful Black Seadevil
lies in wait like a cave.
Stalactites bared, she mouths
a fixed soundless groan,
Munch’s Scream.

Footballfish bobs, a deflated ball.

Stoplight Loosejaw’s floorless mouth gapes
like a rat-trap; while Black Swallower distends itself,
a balloon, to consume outsized prey.
And Bulbous Dreamer.

The bioluminescent among them, like gods,
trail their own light.

Their names glint with a serrated beauty,
the nobility of myth – make plain
what is grotesque. They escape
the Latinate net.
Their names are light.

It makes me love them.

The danger lies in surfacing.
Some inflate at the pressure change:
their guts get pushed through their mouths.
They, who could bear the weight of the ocean,
simply explode.

Nicola Healey’s poems and essays have appeared in Free Bloody Birds, The Poetry Review, Poetry London, The Hopkins Review, Poetry Ireland Review and elsewhere. Her first pamphlet, A Newer Wilderness, was published by Dare-Gale Press in 2024 and won the Michael Marks Poetry Award.

Nicola wrote this about her poem:

I was led to write this poem as I find the names of deep-sea fish – their literalness, which holds a poetry of its own – their alarming appearances, and the very fact that they exist at the bottom of the sea – in total darkness and under immense pressure – fascinating, almost mythical. They seem monstrous, yet one is left with a strange affection and admiration for these creatures, for what seems like (from a human perspective) their grim determination to live – and to adapt in order to live. They bear the weight of the ocean, like Atlas holding up the sky.