Echidna in the Bathroom, Phoebe Kalid

The girl in the bathroom has a tail—

candlewick tip tapering out

to pearlescent length, an ink-black fishing net

tangled in the sink.

‘Who are you?’

‘A denizen of male delusion, mother

of monsters, Typhon’s whore.’

I've never loved a stranger

so wholly before,

& although piss permeates the air I find myself unable to go back

out there, where

crumbs are trodden into tufted pile,

laps are climbed like fence stiles,

where, sometime

between 01:00 and 02:00am,

I’ll crave the sleight of reptiles.

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Phoebe Kalid is a writer from London. She spends most of her time gnawing on the bones of folklore under the intense scrutiny of her three-legged cat, Mosca. Currently, she is writing her first novel.