Arsenic Lobster
poetry journal |
Issue Nine Winter 2005 |
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Calculus E. Starling 1. The mermaid dreams of mirrors. The hero, of her breasts. She rises to rock, he falls to salt, who breathes now? How will either brow be smoothed? Speak for yourself, the wind whistles, easy as a man leaving money on the table, cold as the girl, her mother gone off with a lover to Iowa. 2. The summer I needed a new washing machine because the old one was beyond repair, a woman named Lin signed up for my painting class in the upstairs of the library. Showing her work the second night, just as sudden as anything she said Korea, orphan, refugee, man with one leg in the camp when she was eight, rape and he would cut off her fingers if she told, and the little-boy friend who was nine (they could manage this since the man only had one leg), they killed him with a baseball bat one night and dragged him to the edge of the cliff. Her voice changing when she said it. 3. At the dinner party, the young man who has just published his novel which has nothing to do with his real life except maybe a tiny bit here and there tells you of the screenplay they’re making. You talk about your sister’s suicide which shows what you know about the way to behave at dinner parties. The host says Sylvia Plath’s prose is clumsy, and, polite or not, you disagree. Middle of the night now, the new snow looks so orange. |
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About E. Starling |