#30iv

[1. one who fishes under bridges]

One shadow, fishing under bridges, The quiet lapping at the shore before babbling moans, wheezes, hisses.

Scaled, slick bodies flapping, twisted Bloodied heads beaten in, mouths torn, One shadow, fishing under bridges.

Parasitic tongues gasping for kisses, Our phantom troll toll man listens for Babbling moans, wheezes, hisses.

This dark arch is where his bliss is, Their briny guts grease on the floor One shadow, fishing under bridges

He and them both, eaten by midges, His puckered lungs filled with sores, Babbling moans, wheezes, hisses.

[ lat·​i·​tu·​di·​nous 1. having latitude or breadth especially of thought or interpretation]

Last week I looked in the mirror and didn’t recognise my face.

She and I stared at each other, uneasy as the breeze dropped in the growing summer gloom.

I turned my back, hurried away buried my head in the pillows to escape that strange face surely following.

[luːˈtɛsənt 1. yellowish in colour]

You only get what you can bear to pay for. I used to indulge in yellow: rows on rows of bright waxed lemons and golden yolks carelessly gathered, split in a bowl with caster sugar to make custard so rich it clings in a thick film on the roof of your mouth the whole evening. 

These days I buy yellow like aged eyes peering from wrinkled lids. 

Like the drying crust of albumen smeared on the countertop.

Like the thickened fungal toenail, that hobbles the foot it was made to aid. 

Like the lizard skin peeling from a sunburned shoulder.

[tro·​chal 1. resembling a wheel]

 Every day this week has been the same. Quiet. Filled only by the midnight skittering of a hamster’s wheel,  the croaking calls of circling seagulls, the drone of soup for one revolving in the microwave, the clicking of dog nails as she spirals before bedtime.

[acer·​vate 1. growing in heaps or closely compacted clusters]

Early in spring we brace ourselves against the lingering chill and plough through the organic archive in the compost bin. 

Disrupt the dank piles of activity: the frenetic scurrying of woodlice; the arduous, slick commutes of yellow keeled slugs; the endlessly upward aspirations of earthworms. 

A beached grub writhes slowly in the flowerbed twisting it’s segments in an effort to overturn its body, bloated on soft spring leaves. 

Dandelions, thistles, knotweed, cut grass, brambles, climbing ivy are piled high onto the heap.

[/pəˈkeɪl/ 1. A closely woven fine cotton fabric.]

Can cotton hold memories, form synapses to bridge the tiny gaps in the weave?

Does it remember being planted in spring, or its dying boll baking in the sun?

Does it recall the mother’s love that nestled it in the bosom of a barrel and sent it across the ocean as a babygro? 

Do bedsheets know their bloodied history, the discipline of furrows?

[mi-drahy-uh-sis

Excessive dilation of the pupil of the eye, as the result of disease, drugs, or the like.]

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An expanse, A blackness that doesn’t respond, Won’t pose for the pinprick flash for a blurred photo

Looking blindly into the lens like the glassy eyes on the fish counter.

[ū′ni-fō-nus 1. giving out only one sound.]

 Growing up sometimes feels like growing apart.

Age stretches the uncomfortable boundaries of the nuclear family and we’re uprooting the stakes of the picket fence to better fit four adults in one house.

But my mother sings through her ablutions, a lullaby every evening. My dad sings in a falsetto as fish scales fly out from under his knife and stick, iridescent to the kitchen sink. My brother raps in the shower, backed by the wireless speaker I bought him.