SWIMMING
Hitler and Stalin, they both couldn’t swim,
which says loads about fish,
but nothing about those who can.
I now understand the sea better:
that greedy devourer can’t swim either –
it’s because the sea’s got a floor.
Hitler and Stalin, one was mad about Arian kitsch,
the other about prolaterian kitsch.
In Mali no rain fell for years on end,
lakes and rivers fell dry
and all the fish drowned.
When Stalin was dead,
no one dared touch the corpse for the first few days.
The talk had long since stopped being about swimming.