Beth Bayley’s most recent poem to appear here was “Island Biodiversity” (July 2019).

Sea Monsters
By Beth Bayley

Last night we walked along the coast,
picking up shells and taking sunset selfies,
heading back toward the bus stop along the Siglap Canal,
which opens into the sea and therefore is deep,
with dark waves unlit by the pathway lamps.
Bats circled above as we walked beside the unbreaking waves.
“This is where the sea monsters get in,” I told my husband.
I gestured toward a stairwell leading into the water.
“This is where someone comes
and brings an orange every day, as an offering.
That’s why the sea monsters don’t rise up and consume us all.”

The presentation of these new facts
alongside the unrelenting roll of the black waves
made my husband nervous, so I kept talking.
“Sea monsters aren’t scary. They’re like New Year’s dragons or lions,
or like the Loch Ness monster. Kind of cheerful.”

But his eyes kept flicking back
to the rolling waves, the dark and deep,
until we were safe in the warm glow
of the bus stop, the 31 approaching.