Another Kind of Compass (Drift, Whisper)
Christine Pacyk and Virginia Smith Rice You’re wrong – the weather bleeds. Yesterday, coral sores all over the ocean. Still, I did what all fishermen do when they need to sleep – I reeled in my line, its empty hook. At ten I gutted my first fish, a small pink salmon with an eye like a silver mirror that has forgotten its reflection, a glass marble, blank paper twist at the center. I slipped the knife into its opaline belly and spilled the roe into the swell between waves. Three bay leaves steeped with the simmering carcass, flesh separating from delicate cartilage. And always another run on the way, delayed, the sea rising – still, the waves move forward, red blooms rinsing our bodies, birth-slick, in salt: from water you came, to water you return. Somewhere, we believe in healed, born and reborn under a lucky sign, proving again to ourselves we must be more than ordinary. I place the kettle back on its shelf, twist two metal rings on my fingers, watch lightning slit open each direction. |
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