A yellow post-it note from the Fishhead Nebula, six thousand lightyears away
after Elizabeth Bishop
— buy eggs
— rainbow, rainbow, rainbow orange, courage, ultraviolet light
— go crosseyed, fisheyed gazing stage left, skyward, due east towards Deep Cove
— pay taxes
— wear your sulfurous blue skin and sequins, replace your gills with startling black stripes across your lungs, against the oxygen-packed cluster spawning its new stars
— let your full-blown throat come tumbling apart, spiral and slide down the open underside of the galaxy’s bared arm
— let yourself perch pet-like, gull-like, lovely
— call mom back
— open up your heart: nestle your pin-toothed jaw here against the nook of my neck, due east, my pulmonary artery, stage right, infested with sea lice, big bones and little bones
Lions Gate Hospital is across the street, July 2022
I blame the weather. Things slow down,
the works don’t work.
The clouds part, the cat dies. On the
eighth floor, no one
fixes the crack in the ceiling. The
home page lags,
people gasp at gas prices. The
undercover
fox considers boycotting just about
everything.
Something something, oil and gas
industry, he says.
A poor craftsman blames his tools, as
they say, I don’t
say. Poor me, I blame the tools. The
weather arrives
late on foot dragging a rolled-up
carpet up and
down the alleyway. We wear pink,
imposter-like,
pull down our masks. Up and away, I
say. Speaking
of weather, I want to go swimming. As
the bus
pulls up, I hear someone say, You don’t
want to go
to the emergency room. It’s a
twelve-hour wait.
I blame myself. Things slow down and
things are looking
up. I don’t want to go to the emergency
room, the Little Ghost Nebula, the
hospital
across the street. We’ll go swimming.
We’ll eat
our lunch too quickly, omnivores on the
eighth floor,
up here, up where we’ll be waiting,
won’t we? I am
speaking of the weather. There’s no
emergency.
A grocery list from the Red Spider Nebula, five thousand lightyears away
—
after dark, the time for feasting
—
eating until you’ve had enough to eat
—
toothpaste — you, too, ask too many questions
—
do you sometimes dream you’re wearing down your teeth
—
staying up too late reading, looking up or looking down
—
out the window window window — watching the sky for close approaching planets
when down below the lights are going out
—
more batteries, when the lights go out — and when the spider makes its home
behind the curtain
—
which reminds me
—
2 cucumbers sheathed in hothouse wax or sheeny see-through plastic
—
3 bags microwave popcorn, endless mouthfuls
—
under Jupiter’s close approach and great red eye, and oh
—
you could (see-through) do anything
—
unsheath the cucumbers, suggest atrocities with a butterknife or
—
use your teeth, mouthfuls of something, hot-butter-salted everything
—
canned salmon, bones-in to pry open, skin-in to suck down (rainbow rainbow
rainbow) the soft atlantic flesh and bones
—
and oh to be unknown, to make the recycling bin smell President’s Choice and
wild-caught
—
and oh to smell the nebula — the central white dwarf star, drunk dry by
supersonic shocks, raw almonds and sultanas
—
products of Turkey, emballés au Canada and gorged atrociously on unreplenished
Californian aquifers
—
soy milk, alien unsweetened ions and un-left-handed proteins
—
a fox-red hide and squirrely bread, for toast and jam
—
sometimes in the fox-red autumn afternoons
—
jam (strawberry) because you’ve worked hard and you, Bonne Maman, deserve the taste of strawberries
—
ground coffee, medium dark, Great Value!, cups and cups and cups
—
every day the same way, eating until you’ve had enough
—
to eat, after dark — the lights go out, you’re eating what you’ve bought
—
to eat, what you deserve, eating your forgiveness
—
to eat what you can’t ask, or won’t forgive — too many questions or just the
right amount of lightyears
—
counting out the zeroes, Jello pudding — and nothing out of place
—
ibuprofen, melatonin — your hunger forgiven, forgiveness flying out the window
and the spider dying (rainbow rainbow)
—
eggs, the wet receipt — too much of everything, everything in place
