Fool’s Hold

Suhaila Abdelhalim, 2T5 WB

Delirium came along,
then laid me gently,
ever so gently,
on the brittle coral.

She decorated my hair
with fragile fragments and vibrant fish,
and the dipping waves looked an awful lot
like pulsating intestines,
criss-crossed with venous light rays.

She ironed the air out of my lungs,
and I was sure
I had landed on a dragon,
comatose for millennia,
camouflaged by generations of sea creatures
settling between its spines and scales.

She prepared me for a final waltz,
and I saw him approaching,
a dark figure,
descending through the current –
with elongated fingers,
reaching out,
to take me.