The lake supports some kind of bathysphere,
an Arab dhow

and a fishing-boat
complete with languorous net.

Two caricature anglers
have fallen hook, line and sinker

for the goitred,
spiny fish-caricatures

with which the lake is stocked.
At any moment all this should connect.

When you sent me a postcard of They're Biting
there was a plane sky-writing

I LOVE YOU over Hyde Park.
Then I noticed the exclamation-mark

at the painting's heart.
It was as if I'd already been given the word

by a waist-thick conger
mouthing NO from the fishmonger's

otherwise-drab window
into which I might glance to check my hair.