The Hike
He left his fleece on a rock near the trail. He left
his map in the pocket. In the trees two ravens
talked with the voices of saw blades, a whicker
of wooden throats, the clacking of hollow bones.
A song was wafting off the water's hammered
surface like a fog. A song was rising up his gorge
at a crooked angle, shaving a pink froth of tissue
off the walls. He descended a stack of wet stones,
dipped his black glass in the river. He took a long drink
of cold moss and mud. His song flooded his mouth
tasting of iron and bile, tasting of gristle. His song
dribbled out the corners, painting a frown. In the trees
two ravens listened with ears of filed-down stone,
indentations in lichen. The river's song
had become a shadow in his shape, hovering
beneath the water's face. The river's song raised
a clear glass from under a curtain of ripples, peered through.
The song saw locust trees venting clouds of gnats
into impending evening. The song saw the man see
himself slide off stone like a sheen of oil, until
nothing remained of him. Nothing but a slowly dissipating skin.
his map in the pocket. In the trees two ravens
talked with the voices of saw blades, a whicker
of wooden throats, the clacking of hollow bones.
A song was wafting off the water's hammered
surface like a fog. A song was rising up his gorge
at a crooked angle, shaving a pink froth of tissue
off the walls. He descended a stack of wet stones,
dipped his black glass in the river. He took a long drink
of cold moss and mud. His song flooded his mouth
tasting of iron and bile, tasting of gristle. His song
dribbled out the corners, painting a frown. In the trees
two ravens listened with ears of filed-down stone,
indentations in lichen. The river's song
had become a shadow in his shape, hovering
beneath the water's face. The river's song raised
a clear glass from under a curtain of ripples, peered through.
The song saw locust trees venting clouds of gnats
into impending evening. The song saw the man see
himself slide off stone like a sheen of oil, until
nothing remained of him. Nothing but a slowly dissipating skin.
Derealization is a surrealist movement in the brain
In this museum distance is a painting of fisheye
perspective with a hand of brushstrokes
accidentally framed in the foreground.
You take a photo of the painting & in the photograph
your thumb imposes itself, without asking touches
the hand by blurring a corner of it. & what is foreground
now, you ask yourself, am I foreground? You move closer
to the painting. The painter’s hand is wide & squared
& rough & resting on the landscape like a fly
on a television screen. You can’t be sure the painter
ever had a mouth or eyes & you become aware
of your own face, the one inside that searches
the dark bowl of your skull with two cones of light,
the face flat like a parking lot, smooth like the underside
of a meniscus, its border of a border where water
abuts water abutting air. & somewhere outside,
light is like the water in the pond beneath your face,
light is a bead-less string that slips unheard, unfelt
out a buttonhole in clouds & flinches secretly
inside of leaves. In a room of toilets you sit on a chair,
watch the stalls through the mirrors, how they’re holes
in the canvas into which people disappear
& if someone comes back out they might not be themselves
anymore. & so, what is foreground now?
You can’t be sure a painter ever painted these people’s
mouths and eyes. & several toilets flush at once
& in each one the meniscus in the bowl
wrinkles into a cellophane flower.
perspective with a hand of brushstrokes
accidentally framed in the foreground.
You take a photo of the painting & in the photograph
your thumb imposes itself, without asking touches
the hand by blurring a corner of it. & what is foreground
now, you ask yourself, am I foreground? You move closer
to the painting. The painter’s hand is wide & squared
& rough & resting on the landscape like a fly
on a television screen. You can’t be sure the painter
ever had a mouth or eyes & you become aware
of your own face, the one inside that searches
the dark bowl of your skull with two cones of light,
the face flat like a parking lot, smooth like the underside
of a meniscus, its border of a border where water
abuts water abutting air. & somewhere outside,
light is like the water in the pond beneath your face,
light is a bead-less string that slips unheard, unfelt
out a buttonhole in clouds & flinches secretly
inside of leaves. In a room of toilets you sit on a chair,
watch the stalls through the mirrors, how they’re holes
in the canvas into which people disappear
& if someone comes back out they might not be themselves
anymore. & so, what is foreground now?
You can’t be sure a painter ever painted these people’s
mouths and eyes. & several toilets flush at once
& in each one the meniscus in the bowl
wrinkles into a cellophane flower.
Mermaids in the Milk Aisle
Some stock boys come to work by way of birth canal, others are holograms
projected from the cracks under stock room doors. This stock boy
is built of dim visions, odd flashes leaking out under stock room eyelids.
He murmurs to shoppers of hidden, milky things, mermaids
curled up like taily homunculi in molecules of lactose, casein.
What is an animal called that lives in milk, liquid-bound but not aquatic?
Likely lactic. Can pasteurization be harmful to lactic mermaids or are they
hardy agents of putrefaction? Will they one day spoil the milk? If someone –
for instance, this stock boy – careers toward mermaid study
is he an ichthyologist, an anthropologist, or an icthyanthropologist?
What about respiration? What about reproduction?
Gills and swim bladders or homologous lungs? Must a mermaid surface to breathe?
I asked him how scales and roe are stitched together with mammary glands.
Sex is an external confetti toss of gametes. Where two types mingle
embryos bud beneath translucent membranes. Mother and father
can watch dark eye spots form, fins and fingers. When larvae hatch, they carry
yolk sacs at their bellies. Most are swallowed by sundry mouths,
most are plankton. Those not consumed will consume
milk from their mothers’ breasts. I said, how many young will be mermen?
He said, sequential hermaphroditism. Most will always be mermaids.
Only death of the dominant merman will cause the largest mermaid in his harem
to transform her ovaries to testes. I said, where do you keep the quarts of one percent?
He said, you know there are mermaid eggs in all of this, the butter,
the puddings, the sour cream? They don’t survive your stomach.
projected from the cracks under stock room doors. This stock boy
is built of dim visions, odd flashes leaking out under stock room eyelids.
He murmurs to shoppers of hidden, milky things, mermaids
curled up like taily homunculi in molecules of lactose, casein.
What is an animal called that lives in milk, liquid-bound but not aquatic?
Likely lactic. Can pasteurization be harmful to lactic mermaids or are they
hardy agents of putrefaction? Will they one day spoil the milk? If someone –
for instance, this stock boy – careers toward mermaid study
is he an ichthyologist, an anthropologist, or an icthyanthropologist?
What about respiration? What about reproduction?
Gills and swim bladders or homologous lungs? Must a mermaid surface to breathe?
I asked him how scales and roe are stitched together with mammary glands.
Sex is an external confetti toss of gametes. Where two types mingle
embryos bud beneath translucent membranes. Mother and father
can watch dark eye spots form, fins and fingers. When larvae hatch, they carry
yolk sacs at their bellies. Most are swallowed by sundry mouths,
most are plankton. Those not consumed will consume
milk from their mothers’ breasts. I said, how many young will be mermen?
He said, sequential hermaphroditism. Most will always be mermaids.
Only death of the dominant merman will cause the largest mermaid in his harem
to transform her ovaries to testes. I said, where do you keep the quarts of one percent?
He said, you know there are mermaid eggs in all of this, the butter,
the puddings, the sour cream? They don’t survive your stomach.
Celeste Rose Wood’s poetry has appeared in Nimrod, OCCULUM, Corvus Review, River River, and Bone & Ink Press. As a hermit, i.e. agoraphobic, she thinks it sucks that many people buy into capitalism’s opinion of “disability entitlement” as dirty words. Her dreams are of things like necromancy, mermaids, and healthcare for everyone.