It might have escaped from a laboratory:
 a biological curiosity
  with the body of an octopus
   but no limbs, a pudgy
    limpid belly, jellified cheeks
     and bulging condom eyes
    with a Double Decker wrapper
   for a tongue. The flushers
  discovered its mother
 snoozing in Whitechapel’s bowels
swaddled in a blanket of fat
 a recumbent stalagmite
  of discarded wet wipes
   bringing London’s movements to a halt.

Now a gang of riveted children
 gasp at a quivering sliver
  caged behind strengthened glass
 as it spawns an army of small flies
and wonder at the perversity  
of a monstrous sculpture
carved out of our own bodies,
 a disgusting portrayal in oils
  of a terrible time of waste.
                           

Julian Bishop is a former television journalist with a passion for poetry, gardens, running and dogs. He has had a lifelong interest in ecology since his childhood in rural Wiltshire, and now lives with his family in north London. The poem is from his last collection We Saw It All Happen, Fly on the Wall Press, 2023.