A POEM by SARAH MALINI
The Cryptid of Assembly
for Seph & Kellyskulking through the stacks and aisles
hunched into halves
while the assembled burner boxes wind
paths throughout the plant
a perfect maze of product,
you can find it lurking, lurching, leeching
all the productivity, any positivity, slurping
up the lukewarm dregs, droplets left
in the bottoms of sludgy coffee cups,
it feeds on snippets of wire and scrapped
parts, removed and replaced, recanted
but not yet forgiven, buried in a scrapheap,
a chaotic dumpster full of rejects
to be sent back and warrantied unless
they fall prey, ferreted away,
if you look closely, squint into the dull
florescent luminescence that tinges
the walls all faded grey
you may spot it shuttling,
arms hooked at clawed right angles,
eyes glowing in hooded confines
for just a moment before it shuffles
out of sight back to its nest of cardboard boxes
before it hunts another night
Sarah Malini is a troll bridge asking passersby riddles three by day and a dimension traversing wraith that may or may not be stalking you in your dreams by night. She has work published by Pastel Pastoral and Raven Review + work forthcoming in anthologies by Propertius Press and Gutslut Press. In all her forms, she can be found skulking about on Twitter at @smalini9.