Much like the pomegranate
you contain multitudes.
You laugh in morsels and
to love you is pyrrhic,
for in your hands is panacea
concinnated like pearls on a line.
You’re worth this night and each night —
with straight teeth
you tear apart the pulp of things.
A woman inheriting death
deserves first to taste life.
Not even the Earth
has quite so many rooms.
I imagine holding it
firmly in hand
would do damage,
which is perhaps why
few could venture to rip it
from the sky, say,
or drop it whole into
even the softest palm.
His is a solar wind,
your heart the plum:
the blue dot shivering,
and all along it’s known
itself as just another
in the spinning void.
Is it magic, then,
to be held lightly,
freed from darkness,
and flood forever
those rooms with light?
Dedicated to Hannah Williams, on her wedding day 02/08/2020
You meet me at the bridge and ask me to discard my scales. Urgently: you say it’s time for me to join you above. It’s simple, you say, just pull them out like so many fingernails. You do not have them, so you do not know. You’ve given me no clippers so I must dig in and rip them out from the root.
It takes hours. You grow bored, you drowse beneath a tree nearby. My blood stains the swamp and it bubbles in my wounds. I’m cleansed by black water tannins. My sides and legs shredded and oozing, I roll onto the riverbank. You gather me up in the net of your arms.
You have a place for me in a nice suburban home. I’ll have a family: someone to look after me each day. There is awe and love in your eyes. I have hidden my gills; I hope that as I learn to breathe your air, they do not fall away.
At night, I worry about missed connections. It was possible something minutely divine was at play, in the vein of spying the last ripe avocado, or ripping the tag off a new shirt. Life just seemed a little better for the sinfulness. A message here or there, a provocative dream, a craving late at night when they were each alone. If only they knew what was a beginning and what was a detour.
Finally finished with this Lost and Found film based on early animation clips available at the Library of Congress. Follow this white rabbit into a lucid dream, and allow yourself for just a moment to reinvent your reality.
Hope you enjoy!
