After “Cambridge” by Frank O’Hara
It’s still snowing and the dim fluorescent light
looks eerie flickering down the stone hallway
with only orange life-jackets to illuminate.
The hot spring gurgles, it is the sole heat on earth. I
yawn, stretch out my sludge-colored tentacles,
and draw shapes on the mossy cave walls. Just like Cetus
in the Aegean (they say that Scylla and Charybdis are worse off, but
I’m sure they lived at least a little like this) and,
lacking a bevy of worshippers, I may boil like a lobster
before I can escape this watering hole. I could have killed
anyone who entered? But it’s no fun
being all alone! This breath from the floor, turning into bubbles
like a kid with a plastic wand. Blow! this is not negligible,
living here, and not feeble, since it’s sponsored by
the last living sea god at incalculable cost.
The human tourists jump into my turquoise bath
with a splash and a yell. Secretly, I shall tickle their feet.
By Adriana Barker
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