MAYDAY

It Just Goes to Show
by Sylee Gore

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via Pixabay

Now I know what you’re thinking. In this one you’re the princess; the dragon is faceless. Everywhere, the edges of the waves are blown into froth. I worry so much about making it interesting. Off the ferry, the first thing we buy is a cone of sugared almonds. Crests of waves begin to topple. 

Chimney pots and slates removed. Now, what I’ll say here may surprise you. The Ferris wheel pauses and we sway, watching the sea. The dragon’s weapon isn’t fire – it’s invisible. It’s a terrible idea. The surface of the sea takes on a whitish appearance. 

Twigs break from trees. Whole trees in motion. And what if you change your mind? Now imagine doing this job – from Mars. You’re locked up. I drop ketchup on your dress, then lick it clean. 

I win you an aqua teddy and we leave it on a ride. Whistling in telegraph wires. Your tower is so high. Small trees in leaf start to sway. Now in thirty years, none of this will remain. Of course I agree.

But is it good enough for you? Neon lamps are flashing as we walk back from the ocean. Now there’s no point in making this pretty. Wind raises dust and loose paper. Foam of glassy appearance. Your hair is bright tips from heaven’s edge. 

I want so badly to be in the chamber. Why do I always screw it up? Direction of wind shown by smoke drift. Popcorn hangs on your curls when we leave the last roller coaster. Ripples without crests. Now we all know what this means. 

Let me tell you a story: there is no way to scale the tower. Sea like a mirror; am I wasting your time? You fall asleep against me as the ferry exits the terminal. Smoke rises vertically.

SYLEE GORE has won prizes for her hybrid prose (Bird in Your Hands Prize), non-fiction (Bodleian Libraries), and poetry (Lord Alfred Douglas Memorial Prize). Her work appears in 3:AM, 14 Magazine, Brooklyn Review, Guesthouse, Harvard Review, Longbarrow Press, The Mays, The Rialto, SAND Journal, and elsewhere. Gore translates museum catalogues and artist monographs for galleries and publishers, and serves as Poetry Editor at the Oxford Review of Books.

Further Reading

TZIMTZUM an entry from A Whaler’s Dictionary by Dan Beachy-Quick

Behind Creation another story lurks, explains, complicates. The first question of the world is Form. The question does not begin with “what,” but with “how.” What philosophical and theological theories may gloss when considering ex nihilo as a creative crux is that Nothing must first exist for creation to occur in it. Tzimtzum, in midrashic and kabbalistic thought, […]

On Learning of My Father’s Illness [November 22nd, 2011] by Liam Hysjulien

I don’t believe in anything, but nature-via-beauty-con-science— no cable that welcomes us all home. The crafted shore of crying birds. Alone in the belly of a single branched tree. I find these things all with you. Or the words we rearranged and the combinations that split along the dirty water in my head. I like […]

Rana Dasgupta interviewed by Maya Kóvskaya: CARBON The Residue of Life and Daydreams

Hailed by Salman Rushdie as “the most unexpected and original Indian writer of his generation,” critically acclaimed writer and artist Rana Dasgupta made his debut on the international cultural scene in 2005 with his first novel, Tokyo Cancelled. This “story cycle” of post-modern folktales explored the ruptures, dislocations, multiplicities, and yearnings of our globalized times, with […]