It's Still Life

The Water

Back then, the village pond was for washing work horses. A few years ago someone put carp in there. And the pea soup came, a peculiar kind of dark downward vegetating mush and grass that pressed against the fish. It sucked the oxygen out the water. The carp floated to the surface like gassy bladders. The scent crawled up your nose and scratched at your throat like a fishbone. There used to be wrens and sparrows here. It’s mostly wood pigeons and train whistles now. At least I can remember what was. Work horses. A towpath. Now there’s a fly stuck in the mud.

It’s under the bridge
Fragile as ballet slippers
Watery sunlight

Written for Linda Hill’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday (mostly and at least) and Ragtag Daily Prompt (peculiar). Some artwork is created using Midjourney AI, and is identified as such in the ALT text or captioned. Imagery and poems ©Misky 2023.