Kushii
Richard Stevenson
Lake Kusharo on the northern
island of Hokkaido, Japan,
can claim its own thirty- to-
sixty-foot crater lake cryptid.
Dubbed Kushii, she’s dark brown
with a horse-like head with
two giraffe-like stubby nubbins
and broad boat bottom back.
Plesiosaur or serpent?
Monster eel maybe? In spite
of hundreds of sightings,
no one is the wiser yet
or gets close enough long enough
to tell. And Kushii, for her part,
isn’t divulging any secrets either.
Devil’s plaything? Sulphurous water dweller?
Let us keep guessing as long as
ideas gather round inflow vents
That oxygenate the water. Be baby catfish
gathering around a mother casting a big shadow.
