Underworld

By D. r. Baker

There are nymphs that float along white 

rivers winding deep beneath the city.

They giggle and blush as they look 

up the skirts of rushing cars through

12 dark feet of asphalt, mud, and concrete,

and hold their breath as they pass by

sewerstreams of shit and cigarettes,

wince in pain as they squeeze up

tight metal pipes diverging in 

tubular mazes and dropping some

out the rusty ends of kitchen faucets

for fine china cups full of boiled and

minty nymphs, while some get lost in

transmigration to watch their friends gush

out the tops of broken sprinkler heads and

rain down the itchy spears of grass below 

as they puddle up where some sink back

to relive muddy lives and others travel

so far they actually reach that fabled land

of great-grandmother, the sea.