Cryptid Poem by Ernest Hilbert

The water gives nothing back. A child squeals
"Where's the monster? " She's jubilant
But braced impatiently for disappointment.

I track the peat-blackened surface but glimpse
Nothing in its fossil depths, just froth
From screws that churn the loch to cola fizz.

We chug toward the coral reaches of the castle,
Hugged by mountains, buoyed on the abyssal trench,
Oil-bath sheen all around. Saurian cumuli

Lumber down the sky. Hidden in the black, I know,
Lurk centuries of eel, char, and fanged pike,
But where is our monster, the one we thought

Would always be there somewhere, though hidden?
The tiny girl in pink stamps her silver slippers.
No monster today, or ever. I catch the shallow

Smudges of my face in the cabin window.