Green Fingers
This thing I found on a beach Down Under
jolted me like a bolt of thunder,
a gruesome thing I’d never seen—
two fingers, festering and green.
I took them to police HQ.
A homicide? Suspicion grew.
Examined by pathology,
they actually turned out to be
a pair of sea squirts. But how sick
they looked! All I could say was, “Ick!”
picturing a hand in the deep
drowning sailors in their sleep.
Foul play ruled out, they’re now on view
in the museum while, in the blue
Pacific, horrific fingertips
reach up—green, vile, and keen for ships!
Martin Elster
If you have any thoughts about this
poem, Martin
Elster would like to hear them
