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The Authentic Eclectic
The Caterpillar & The Monkey
Eliot touched his lips to the nightlit water. “The caterpillar will do the rest,” he said.
The seamstresses fell back on the sand. Their hungry eyes glowed like jellyfish.
In the night, from whence it comes; through the seaweed, bartered; blending mournfully, from the sand. She swings down from the firmament, the call of a dove, resting her emerald body in the surf.
He named her Esmeralda. He said: like the dancer with her little goat, “her variegated gown puffing out.” She went to work at once, inching out upon the water, draining the onlookers’ breath.
Would she sink? Would she float? She must weigh a thousand pounds. Her front half dipped under the waves, and breathlessness found space to gasp.
But the crochets on her prolegs had been spun by the seamstresses’ wiles, and rested on the water like lilypads. She raised her head with the pride of Hatshepsut, already understanding that the legs served no purpose here, and on those carnelian little pads, she walked.
The seamstresses crossed themselves and cut the stitches from their red mouths.
Eliot breathed.
