Car Wash

Creative Strategy #88: Describe 2021 as if it were a poem

CAR WASH

We took him to his first car wash

when he was six-months old

strapped safely in his pilot seat

in the back & of course

what were we thinking

when he was swallowed

whole by the whale

as it gulped him down,

its tendrils slapping, wringing

guzzled him like krill, its acid guts

whizzed & thumped,

growled & roared

the soapy drool spewed over us,

the hot bile hosed us down,

down into the deep wet dark

where things change

& nothing we could do or say

could comfort that wailing child

until we were free

of the belly of the beast

& safe & clean & back on land

in light where things like that

of course don't ever happen.

— Patrick O’Leary