Whistle Like a Clanger
by Bill West
She sleeps, head cradled in your arm. Her head, like a moon, low in the night sky. You want to blast off, land in some deep crater, and explore her secrets. Her ear invites you. It makes you think of a pale seashell crater. Uninvited, you slide helter-skelter, down into the darkness.
Wax walls ripple, twist into shapes: white rocking chairs, tables, and doll’s houses. You drop past figures that sprout like mushrooms which come alive. Morph rides past on a nailbrush; Clangers whistle to you,waving their four-fingered wave.
(Come on, now: whistle like a Clanger!)
And then you land and bounce for a while, slowly up and down on her red, velvet eardrum.
At the centre is a puckered hole. You slide through, headfirst, like being born.
You emerge from the cradle of a giant water lily and look out over a dimpled pool. Frogs with bulging eyes menace, snapping dragonflies with whiplash tongues. You dance from leaf to leaf. Leviathan goldfish below circle, waiting for you to fall.
You scramble ashore and push past giant grasses and prickled nettle stems, until you reach a clearing.
The giant green caterpillar sits on a toadstool, with his fez and hookah pipe. He has curly silk slippers on each of his sixteen feet. They wiggle like red buttons as he sucks on his pipe. He blows out rainbow clouds that swirl like mist, stream like swallows that swerve and twitter as they fly away.
“She’s watching!” he mumbles before closing his eyes.
And you are floating in darkness; stars twinkle above and below. The stars swell, drawing near, silver at first but turning to gold as they grow,each one an eye with heavy lids and veils of eyelashes. They watch.
You want to hide but, as you twist and turn, each eye fills with a Milky Way of tears. They wash you like warm milk. You tumble and turn down twisting ducts until you are squeezed like a pearl from her breast.
You wake with your head on her belly. Your head moves up and down with each breath. You whistle like a Clanger.
(Come on now, whistle like a Clanger.)