BY SHANNON QUINN
New Future @prayer
(provenance unknown)
sits on back porch
fist in her mouth
tries to boil the water
bits of him crumble
by the hour
she & her brother are gasoline
& used bullets
the sweet abrasion
of a mother’s tongue
incapable of apology
he used to be humble medicine
in a bucket of water
(in case she caught fire)
if he will be a banjo
she will strap him to her back
busk big tent revivals
this time they will know better
refuse blessings & prayers
accept only matches
Letter from Glaucous to New Future
(annotated Book of Reflection)
I spent too much time in the sky searching for a celestial crawlspace
(I had no business being there, our father, a planet that ate his own stars).
I thought the common grave would yield…Hoped if I stayed away
you wouldn’t notice the changes, law of diminishing returns.
I try to move as little as possible. Spend days/years? thinking
about how our mother covered her face with a blanket of pollen
so we wouldn’t know her. Left us in a cave with bees to feed us.
In-utero we pretended to be ravens swimming round each other.
You came out first: quadruped. Me second: biped. You telling
me I was made from your leftovers. Me screaming. You laughing.
Me screaming harder for you to take it back, then…a mouth full
of bees buzzing me into a lulled silence. You licking honey from
my face.
Sometimes I think we are back. Two birds fluttering to an absent
mother’s heartbeat. Together, content, unfinished
Letter from New Future
(provenance unknown, found in Isafjordur cave)
You won’t get through on the dream-line. I medicate it. But if you come
I want to know. I’ll wrap my house in fish skin, set out tealights.
Look for the flicker.
I stopped walking when there was nothing left of you to carry. It took
a long time. They don’t know us anymore. I live by the water.
I walk upright. I am settled here in this patch of solution, great experiment
by careful new beings.
I found the stone whistle you left for me, am learning to read the rocks—
so full of your stupid abundance.
Shannon Quinn is the author of two collections of poetry: Questions for Wolf and Nightlight for Children of Insomniacs. She is based out of Toronto. She recently wrote and co-produced an interactive digital poetics eco-myth with Griffin Epstein and Bryan Depuy. https://www.whosewoods.org/biophilia