Photo by Irina Iriser.

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retrograde, hippocampus, and the spin

i.

declining BROTHER, declining MIRROR IMAGE, declining TWIN, cleaved soul, cleaved shell, do you remember your injury? the terrible, early wound? the terrible, first wound and that night replete with shipwrecking storms and currents that GNASH and pull. do you remember that you felt the starfish stab of pain in the dark and held, held, held just for an instant, the blurred, hazy memory of copper against your teeth.

underwater, underwater, in the subtleness of the sea, the sea’s soft subtleness, the algae might have seemed LIKE A CARESS, LIKE AN EMBRACE, LIKE A BANDAGE—a BANDAGE, for your UNMOTHERED WOUNDS!—but do you recall how the weight and weft of them kept pulling you down? can you recall how the weight and weft of them kept pulling you down? could you ever forget how the weight and weft of them kept pulling you down? would you ever forget how the bulk and burden of them kept forcing you down? kept forcing you down and down and down again? could you forget?

would you ever want to forget?

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ii.

YOU CANNOT RECALL! poor brother, poor flayed brother, poor declining brother. it is hard to know what to think when your heart is so full of thunder. it is hard to know what to think when ALL YOU HAVE TO HOLD, when all you have to hold, is your shipwrecked pilot’s thumb, wrecked and shattered and tempest-tossed, just like you, like you! it is hard to know what to say when the sea glass seems so cool and smooth but your broken thoughts are still in all those jagged shards that you hoard like dazzling underwater poppies. poison-stocked. gold-laced, frilled by danger. like anemones. like anemones. they are so bright, so bright and bold, but you, you, you, you poor little one, you poor summer boy, you poor winter child, you too are blank, and clear, and smooth, and you remain this way, EMPTY AND UNMOORED, EMPTY AND UNMOORED, UNSETTLED AND UNHINGED, until suddenly, you remember, until fleetingly you remember, until stunningly, you remember: this was once a rich kingdom! i had teeth, i had pearls! i had a safe, marble home that the grinding waves broke and crumbled, and that the viscous ocean bottom now swallows and reclaims!...

YOU CANNOT RECALL! then black. then back again.

YOU CANNOT RECALL! and you turn away from me and from this reedy, tired woman who was your mother, who was once your mother, while your PULSING TENDER WOUNDS and all the sorry spots that eat and gnaw at you, that swallow and engulf and erode at your heart and your inner bones, continuing the sick machine, their slow dance of attack and retreat, of attack and retreat, attack, retreat. OF ATTACK, OF RETREAT.

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iii.

now, dear brother, now poor friend, now, now, now, you failing summer boy, now, now you shipwrecked baby, only the failing seagrasses offer up a tentative, chary refuge from the current of your loss, from the CURRENT OF YOUR LOSS, from the push and pull of it. these drunken weeds are a BUFFER, a SIEVE, a RAKE. they are a VICE for your darkened left-handed thought to latch to, they are a bath for that festering wound that you love to let seep and stare and fill with salt, like a glistening, seeping eye. all of these eyes here. ALL OF THESE EYES HERE!

the speckled fish that cool the sting of the sun with their silvery backs, that softer gulf, that soft subtleness, that milder bay, that softer breeze, and this small pile of bones that somewhat slices and stays the current, EVEN IF FOR A MOMENT ONLY, HAVE chosen you. THIS IS SHIPWRECK! THIS IS SURELY ETERNAL FAILURE! but they have chosen you! they have all chosen only you!

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iv.

following their lead, following their lead, mindless and mournful, mindless and taciturn, mindless and waterlogged, mindless and mourning, you fill your pockets with mud-clotted coins, dark stones, rotting fish, ROTTING FLESH, and all the dirty, dying things that were left behind in the drag, in the shift, in the wake, in the slice. there, there is a breast. there is a tooth. there is a REJECTED CROWN, the collar you threw away, the home you traded for old poisoned nails that scrape and stab, and scrape and stab. these rusted goods, these mossy facts and the brine, brine, brine that blunts and binds them, dwindling, peaking, pricking, piercing everything it POURS its corrosive whisper towards, the draining sound it sets in your EAR, the forgotten shipman’s card, drained through and through. this unending tempest, those moaning waves. these seeds, this grain, these paltry favors, your one true anchor. your ONE CHAPPY ANCHOR!

you spin here, declining, dirty, dying. you are wild and worn. you are wild, and worn, and withered through and through.

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