Andrea Wyatt
Return of the Kraken
To Ana Mara Saunders
When Kraken wakes waves whip the depths,
the dark abyssal plain,
turns up the Vulcan boulders on his stretching shoulders—
past the knotted sea wrack strewn
the Kraken lumbers ‘neath the moon,
lumbers through the surf and onto shore—
smashes all the fairy lights, the barques, the boats
devours stoats and tiny babes
sends all reeling to their graves—
but here resides a brute invited in,
no Norse creation come to slake his thirst
but worse, the wild-eyed butcher boy—
spawn of Mammon’s crook and slag,
husband to a winsome hag who takes him at his word,
his empty, yawning space—
homegrown monster, mad with schemes,
apocalyptic end time dreams,
here, disordered reason in this withered season,
welcome in the Kraken.
Andrea Wyatt is the author of three poetry collections. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Copperfield Review, Gargoyle and Gravel. She works for the National Park Service in Washington, DC and is associate editor of poetry journal By&By.
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