Stanley Pelter: levels of Ocean

.
make believe ocean
waves with attitude
batter fish

an Ocean fills her from inside out. overlaps into our room. gently at first. slowly. low waves lap gateways. entrances, exits, splash silence into the ear of the room. water bound cubic space shortens to a reduced shape. chair legs, table legs, her legs, mine, begin to reflect. slowly more water makes islands of us. she wraps inside it. breathes. bobs to the top like a cork. nothing floats free. under water nothing is solid. she, covered, ripples into fragmented layers of salt crystal beautiful. displaced, she breaks into a kaleidoscope of patterns. an image shimmering spreads. slowly they reconstruct into a more absorbent surface. still some way from completion, waves grow in size but rise more slowly. what sort of person, i wonder, would construct such a tightly sealed room? not a drop seeps beyond any edge of its close-knit space. what feminine structure is able to release an Ocean like it is a dam slowly opening, inexorably filling? cloned goldfish throw themselves out of the water. continuous air drowns them. pushed and circled lower by air currents, they fall back into the slow rising water. except one that hurls up with so much released fear it hits and sticks to a gilded plaster ceiling surround, solidifing onto a sculptured Relief pageant of Greek gods, goddesses and Hebraic script. large rococo-framed ceiling mirrors reflect only a discordant image. before i can deep breath one final time a rubber begins to erase room and contents. a quick glance at her succulent body being wiped clean. i can now leave, backwards, baby feet first and hair free.

putty rubber
unknown hand slides it
from side to side

by Stanley Pelter
Claypole, Lincolnshire, England