medicinal, confusion
at least theoretically
like waking from a dreamless
sleep, all milk
and eggshells
•
do we follow monotreme
retrograde protocols
very well we follow
monotreme retrograde
protocols like leaving
extra time to swim
across the known body
of water into
the unknown like expanding
our definition
of animal life
•
the true non-linear nature
of my tail, my beak
my webbed feet.
I surface like a memory
in my den. Everything
I do is an offering
to the mammal you
have become, who I will
never be, waking
from an unknown world.
•
Did you just make a heart for me
because you love me?
I will smash it up, is that cool?
The small plastic
tool. A thing that will emerge
from the ground some future
day, if there are any mammals left
to find it.
•
A small mammal thing, an animal thing.
Of the mammals, only monotremes
can’t dream, our profound rest
the price you paid
for the child in your belly, his toes
separating against your skin,
leaving shimmering waves
like markings
in prehistoric sand.
•
What would a submarine man need?
Scissors, goggles
each piece a fragment
you break from the whole, a webbed network
of silver plastic, detritus of industry.
Your mammalian child lifts
a minuscule knife, fine motor, to your chest.
And now we need to cut your heart.
It will not hurt.
Rachel Feder teaches at the University of Denver. Birth Chart, a collection of astrology poems, is forthcoming from SUNY Press in Spring 2020. This poem, the first in a new series about motherhood & peculiar animals, took as its prompt some descriptions of Mercury retrograde by Emily Heather Price, aka The Voluptuous Witch.
Twitter: @RachelFederDU