Fluke

The Quiet Fluke

In the mist‑kissed shallows where the sea‑sorrel grows,
a quiet fluke slips across the silt‑white floor—
its gills like folded lace, its body a muted dove,
sunk beneath the green glare of the Thames’ old shore.

No fish of instinct, no strike of an ambitious spear,
just a lazy glide, a solemn, lazy bow.
It changes colour as the tide shifts, keeping with its neighbour,
a perfect disguise among oaky leaves and sifted snow.

That fluke of the rivers— a gentle, yielding creature,
reminds me of one other, a fluke of the mind.
A slip of fate in the laboured turn of a day:

“By fluke” the duck stamped the wrong key,
turning a quiet Friday into a bright, bright talk.
The wrong door swung open to a room of eager jazz,
and the morning stuck in amber with light like a new word.

Both are curious: one, beneath the seaside tides;
the other, in the flicker of a moment of luck.
Yet both have that same, tiny splinter of grace,
lifting an ordinary beach into a calmer place.

So if you hear a rippling wish in a calm sea or a chuckle on the street,
remember the fluke that lies beneath, and the fluke that lifts us.
In coast or in chance, and in words that we write,
a quiet fluke keeps us in balance, face to face with delight.