A Fowl in the Ocean

Aleah Ryan

A fowl in the ocean, Its pinion slicked with deplorable detritus and beak filled with asphyxiating salt, it strikes out with its talons, grapling with the weight of the water to free itself. The feathers of its wings and rectrix that once helped it soar so unfettered, now are the things that drag it down into the abysmal depths of this place that isn't its own.

And hēo, the worthless creature in the disfiguring water's reflection, -insignificant, inconsequential, inconsiderablehēo wants so desperately to be one with the sea, but the reprehensible thing is repudiated by the ocean's aqueous touch. For the sea wants not more litter.

Author’s note: This is a pastiche of Walt Whitman’s “A Noiseless Patient Spider,” written for an assignment in Mrs. Sica’s Creative Writing I.

Anshul Rastogi