gulp that salt-chunk air
sob
tear hair, wild green grass
ragged
sky-tossed waves
brine, not mine
nowhere
buzz on rocks
flies,
sandgravel-spray
ozone
flotsam
angry brain
fierce tide
floatswirl
relentless awake
gulp that salt-chunk air
sob
tear hair, wild green grass
ragged
sky-tossed waves
brine, not mine
nowhere
buzz on rocks
flies,
sandgravel-spray
ozone
flotsam
angry brain
fierce tide
floatswirl
relentless awake
draw the hook up
and catch the spinning load
of fluttering flotsam
drain-smelling of rotting things
peer closer though
it is the diminuative sink-sprite, Jetsamina!
her gossamer wings of silvery vagina-slime
and an evil dark-brown-black dress, mucky with hairballs
cat-breath of pilchard surprise
“I will grant you a single wish”
she gurgles in a voice of soap scum
her demesne: the smelly underworld of sewers and stormwater drains
so
I snap on clammy rubber gloves
make my request
a Borrower’s behest
make me like Arrietty (and Spiller)
tiny, special and deft
we’ll ride the effluent together
Damn the rest!
The Day 8 Glo-Napowrimo prompt was to write poems in which mysterious and magical things occur. I kinda like the idea of mixing the magical with the mundane, even disgusting. I get an odd satisfaction from gross jobs like cleaning the greasetraps in the drains… so I was struck by the idea of a local spirit who might live in there. And I adored Mary Norton’s Borrowers books as a child.
Pic: still from Studio Ghibli’s anime film “The Secret World of Arrietty” sourced from https://lesamantsreguliers.wordpress.com/2011/07/20/arietty-mon-amour-arietty-the-borrower/