Issue 4.6

Flies I recall each time I’ve been pestered by the aimless fly. However, it was only several afternoons ago when I sat atop a boulder that I did not climb and ate an avocado with nothing but my teeth and calloused fingertips to pull the peel from the flesh that I let this less than magnificent creature stay for just a bit longer on my forearm. Looking past his six legs two of which were rubbing on and past each other as if seeking warmth looking into his thousand-paneled eyes and in each panel I can see my chin rested on the forearm of a friend as they peel a piece of citrus, pith from peel and the fruit from both taking in each vapor that escapes rapidly from its pores before buzzing on about my aspirations for the next week, the necklace I found in the corner of an old hamper, and how close I am to achieving this warmth that I cannot name. But when bathing with the spiders that have created intricate, ephemeral homes in the wet corners of tile, and when speaking with my mother, this warmth feels tangible enough to rub between my fingers.

But Where There's Any Kind of Water, There Will Be Another Web I almost miss the starlight dew that gathered honeyed on my strings when I would catch the life mid-air before it sang its new aubade and suck its bubbles like a bottle fly, meniscus carapace resisting just enough to please me when I penetrate it deep. Alas the shed is drier than a library; these occult things erect my architecture’s beams, negating space until the gods decide the season’s come for awful work and choose to wreck the place, to drown me in their noise, to make of me, again, a refugee.

For Clytie The lotuses see off the boat bound for the distance vanishing eastward; my wish travels therein. Though I might grow wings, I still cannot depart. My affections I entrust to the start of this letter. In childhood, our hearts had no gaps. How could we have known the bashfulness of youth? Bamboo horses circled the courtyard steps, flowing light illuminated our bright pupils. At fourteen, we each went to east and west, no more the companions of former days. In the year’s late cold, the world’s edge is far; how can a joyful meeting be sought? You watch the first glow of dawn reflecting, while I return to thick evening mountains. You float the spring wine with new guests while I gallop and ride over vast fields. How can one be a leaf upon a branch, to wither and fall, returning to catalpa’s roots? How can one be a wild goose on the water’s edge, stumbling as it rises from the sandy bank? A bright pearl is content with flaws in its substance, a precious sword endures being cast to darkness. Our bodies are already lost in the vast surge, our hearts should follow the drifting of life. Like hoary hawks, eyes gleaming, we soar and fly toward islands far in the ocean.

An Osprey Still There are pockets in the sky that hold me still: an aerie in a moment in the air. At -30 ft/s² the math is simple when you need the kill— a raptor lit by methane flare. I stick around the water treatment plant, the off-gas effervescent as a still— a flash of silver in the sewage spill. I have the angle, need the cosecant; let's grab the future by the gills. My head, the focus of my barrel roll, defines the difference: instinct versus will. I fall like acid rain or hail, but still I never once have lost complete control: a sweet relief, a bitter pill. My hunger carries dreams that death fulfills. My double jointed talons make a wish. My shadow spreading, I adjust my pitch. The wind is whistling, but my voice is still. I swallow water. Catch the fish. It wriggles weakly, guts inside embraced. My flight is awkward, heavy lading bill. Some weight is making all creation ill. I thank the gods my tongue is numb to taste. And still… And still…. And still… And still… Still nature's only mortal sin is waste.

The Ephemeral Season of the Toad In March I will mourn the season of the toad. Not because he is indiscoverable, or because I'm particularly fond of the misshapen lumps on his back, but in the frequency by which I will take something just about the size of my palms and cup it between them, letting his soft body mold to the creases of my hands, whispering good intentions and all of my ill deeds to the empty hole located just beside his temple, in hopes that what resembles an ear may be keen to rambling. He takes each praise, each shameful admission as if in his priesthood, and answers me in blinks subliminal to what I already believe. I will be able to see him, or his brother, in June surely behind the wet foliage engulfing the peony that continues to rise and die each year along with the toad. I will see him in November if gifted a glimpse of my bare back in a close enough mirror, the moles tracing up and along my spine spreading to the far ends of my shoulder blades. I grieve the toad not due to the fact of his absence, but because I cannot kiss him without his round body finding me when he brings his wet palms to mine and lays down his heavy body as I practice Savasana in the yard. I am bereaved of the toad in August that he in all his moles, in all his complex thoughts, and in all his love for subconscious meditation, exists beyond what is available to me. And though I can see traces of him along my spine out toward my shoulder blades, and in the smell of rich soil, I cannot hold him in the palms of my hands, cannot bless him by the sentiment anointed to him by the waxy paraffin of my lips, and will not know if he died in the spring.

Fossilized Footprints After work we hopped between slabs of soft brown rock where waves had smashed the mudstone cliff and the broken bones of a ruined house flapped curtains and carpets in the endless wind. The paths across the windswept beach shifted between sinking sands where once we’d found a mammoth tusk that creaked as the tide swilled out. This time we found fossilized footprints across the mudstone slabs where a Neolithic family had checked for driftwood or an easy meal. I burbled on about calling the museum to take plaster casts. You were energized by the connection back through time and said that from that moment things could never be the same. I hesitated over which path to take between the cold mirrors that slicked over the prints and for a moment I felt we might be cut off and drowned. Then you grabbed my hand and judged the time to jump to beat the surging tide.

If I Decide to Call on Time I wanted to call time on my journey, to copy myself and arrive at a destination, without moving my body from here to there, but that mission was not meant for me, because time was not within my beck and call. I had searched the scripture for an explanation, or for a clue to what I was required to do, when mountains leave their holy forests to swell my heart and head for a change, or oceans abandon their deep valleys to swamp my soul with dying waters. I was desperate to return to my origin, but desperation was not the spoken arrival which my destiny forgot to add to my life, to give me the power to command an end, when my journey seemed hurt and painful. Sometimes it needs to watch the sky descend to where the evening sun has a little rest, and I watch the battle to outlive the hour when the sky falls, and the rivers drench the hills. The sparrows have nothing to do with my time, nor can the albatross swear it has the power to decry the blessings common to the rest of man, or determine when the hour of summons has come. So bounteous is the gift awarded to the eagle, but decoding my fate was not one of them, only to demonstrate to me the art of rising, to make resurrection a gift within my fingers. I cannot kill my body and take possession of it, nor have I the power to ask for death’s assistance, to put an end to a thing not ordained to have an end, when I have no power to bring forth its beginning, but that my eyes have seen, my ears have heard, and my mouth must testify to the goodness of God. Have I said that it was too dark for faith to return, where the blossoms of a hurt heart would peak, and glory, like roses, returns to the driest ground?