I never set out to be important.
I just caught a Cod on a fishing trip in Whitby Bay.
I always knew that the Volvo estate would come in handy
driving back to London with the Cod in an old baby’s bath.

Never knew then, nobody did but three weeks later
on the Ten O’clock News, Trevor Macdonald announced
that the world’s oceans were now Cod-less.
We had over fished.
We had over didn’t care.

Now it’s just me, the cat and The Last Cod in The World.
Swimming in circles in my bath tub in North London.
If only the neighbours knew that I was the keeper of
The Last Cod.
I need to tell somebody, but who?
For years they told us it was Cod in Chip shops but it was a lie.
It was cheap fish from Japanese waters.

The Cod is ugly but it’s the last, it’s a heritage fish.
Does it know its the last of its race washed up in my
bath tub in a city miles from the North Sea?
How would I feel as the last human trapped on an oil well
surrounded by Cod?
Knowing that the Cod were responsible for my people’s extinction.

I feel like a terrorist checking for hairs on my palms.
At least I imagine that’s what terrorists do while waiting in three star hotels.
I don’t go out much now for fear the cat will eat the fish.
Half a bitter and the talk of a Police State down the pub.
Weaponry stock piled under floor boards.

What are you supposed to feed a Cod?
I give it croutons but it can’t be healthy.
Is it okay to use table salt?
Could I mate it with another breed of fish?
Can you tickle Cod like Trout?

Returning home one night from the pub
after an evening’s dominoes, I realise that the
Cod is going to die.
The nearest river is underground and besides it needs salt water.
North Wales is quiet this time of year,
(in fact its always quiet).

At 2 a.m I leave the capital.
No fanfares from the city dwellers for The Last Cod,
just 24hr garages and sodium lights.
On the London Orbital, I head north,
driving slow to avoid attention from police cars.
By seven I am on the seafront in Rhyl.

I must look odd walking on the beach with a cool box in March.
Wading into the sea as the tide spills over the tops of my wellies.
I can see the docks on Merseyside as I open the cool box.
I give the fish a stroke and talk to it like a parent would a child
that was about to spend its first night away from home.

I lower the cool box into the Irish sea
and watch the fish’s body rise.
Like an elevator climbing upwards until it’s floating,
dazed in its new environment.
Feel like Captain Kirk as I tell the Cod
to go find a mate and colonise new oceans.
The Cod swims off and I go for breakfast.

Later at night in bed, unable to sleep
I wonder when the cat will become the last of its race.
I go downstairs and lock the catflap.
Waiting.