Cover Story
Jolly good fellows
From poems to songs, plays to dances, artists bolster our spirit
Rudolph Pokorny
Published: July 11, 2012
Itch, Scratch
—after Stephen Dunn
From everywhere and all-at-once,
from somewhere beneath the moon,
came the deep-sea fish that needed
to see, came the not-yet-flying squirrel
eyeing the two-far limb, came whale
and dolphin and bigger brains,
hair before razor, less fur more skin,
the opposable thumb, and fingers
for rings, for triggers, and of course
the triggerfish, though not in that order,
came bate-and-switch, lure and gulp,
the alligator snapping turtle,
came dog and god and much later
The Spanish Inquisition not-for-the-inquisitive,
came the rack and correct truths
and a need to stretch the truth,
and then a taller world—
upright posture before posturing—
came anger and angst and absinthe,
wastelines fat and thin, fancier hair and skin,
hook and eye in search of closure, exposure,
came style and stink and thus the harpoon,
and soon demigods and demitasse,
swagger and soiree, clipper ship and film clip,
and (without order) pit bulls, tar pits, cherry pits and pitfalls,
bells to sound joy, danger, and then
a complex of fears, because with neurons
come neurosis, bats in our belfry,
a lift from Zoloft, and learning to embrace
your beard of bees, your May your mayhem,
the hive of days honeycombed
with sweetness and stings.
From Mary Jo Firth Gillett's 2007 collection Soluble Fish.
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