Here you come, Major Big Time,
smooth-sailing ocean’s ceiling
in your lumpy, bumpy skin,
swaying hello to watchers:
a living, breathing submarine
tail-waving so-long
like a colossal mermaid

on vacation. You re-emerge
in thundercrush rush, splashing
and spraying your crack-the-whip crash
of high seas. You’re a gargantuan gymnast,
a legless lob of acrobat, a mega mass
of back and side, keen to enthral
with bellyflop drops, moves your size floats

as impossible, except I witnessed you
with my wide eyes – until you wallowed
in a rubble of bubble. Then, out of the sinking – your wing
of plane tilts blue sky, deep dives
to compose whale song, breaches
the music of my mind.

When I arrive home, I thump back
on my bed, plug in headphones,
bathe muscles in send-me-to-sleep sound.
I lose myself in echolocation,
wait for dreams to rise.

WHOOOOOOSH!

You spring from oceans
of mattress, splashing
fishing foam as feathers.

 

*

Leigh Manley is a poet and creative facilitator from south Wales. His writing for children has featured with The Dirigible Balloon and Northern Gravy and he is currently in the process of revising his first collection of magical poems for the curious and young at heart. He also writes for adults and has featured with Poetry Wales, Ink Sweat and Tears, These Pages Sing, The Seventh Quarry and various anthologies. Away from writing he can be found watching rugby and drinking tea!