Drolleries

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Drolleries Page 3

by Cassidy McFadzean


  PHANTOM LIMB

  Before the trash bin, slipping

  from my finger as I stick

  inside crinkled packaging –

  in the water of the lake I swim

  like a common nettle stinging

  the edges of its band sharpening –

  in the cold, my skin constricting

  for an instance, the metal loosening –

  long since jettisoned, my gold ring

  its drop against marble singing –

  my indentation lingering, a figment

  of freedom and constraint, this wrestling –

  a stupid thing, my ruminating –

  I still feel it clinging

  KUNSTKAMERA

  Let us dwell not on how Ruysch’s

  curiosities fell into brutish hands,

  only that Peter the Great transformed

  a noble fascination with the human

  body into something monstrous,

  the mystery of Ruysch’s embalmings

  sold and housed in this, the empire’s

  first museum. Alongside a nine-striped

  armadillo, pangolin, two-headed goat,

  a display of Peter’s much-loved

  beautiful butterflies now floats children’s

  severed heads in jars, a ghoulish

  collection of defects and deformities

  in glass cabinets. It is the artistry

  of the still lifes that draws us in,

  a cover story for our flagrant staring.

  Ruysch’s liquor balsamicus so refined

  he was accused of sorcery, but behind

  claims of Spirits of Zeus and Poseidon,

  the secret to his liquor lies in clotted

  pig’s blood and mercury oxide.

  Working closely with his midwives,

  Ruysch gathered his specimens,

  hoarding fetuses with extra limbs,

  conjoined twins, infants with heads

  enlarged and those sunken, a trove

  of children’s skeletons. The doctor

  could not resist adding several

  artistic flourishes: flowers and fishes,

  bonnets and lace cuffs his daughter

  assisted in placing on the delicate

  skin. Freakish? Nay – ingenious!

  Who else would (tastefully) place

  a child’s leg in the selfsame jar

  as scorpion? Ruysch did. Impossible

  as it is to choose among favourites,

  one diorama eclipses the rest: a fetus

  of about five months with placenta

  in an antique jar decorated with coral,

  a seahorse, an array of shells. You may

  find it beside a woman’s prepared

  pelvic organs, her bladder and uterus.

  MAYING

  How are you beating in my body, heart?

  How is it you dwell here? Guinevere

  drew the colour from my skin like marble

  carved from Porta della Pescheria’s archivolt.

  As lances bore toward her in the tower,

  she ran from her abductors. Fair Winlogee,

  catching my breath from these rattling lungs,

  I never rode a horse to escape you; I only

  clung to men to flee. Clutching these reins

  so tightly they chafed me, Gwenhwyfar,

  I too went a-Maying. Too rode from wood

  to meadow, slipped a ring from my finger,

  and fell into a sleep. It’s no Arthur I need

  now, no King of Tangled Wood, Malduc,

  Melvis, or Lancelot to keep. Only pluck me

  from these dreams before they burn me,

  Findabair. I’ll become Ellen Terry as Lady

  Macbeth, a dress of beetle wings, crocheted.

  FOUR OF CUPS

  My arm bruised where the nurse drew

  four vials of blood. It was a prick

  to see if I pour out normally,

  or if my mutant genes coagulate.

  Patterns blur: my knuckles

  against carpet at 1 AM, the next morning

  waiting for the train carrying massive green tubes

  to inch forward, then reverse, move forward again.

  In this way, segments of the Keystone XL Pipeline

  clear the intersection. Peering through

  the fetal assessment unit’s second storey window,

  I watch a pigeon regurgitating crop milk

  into her fledgling’s gape. One bill fits within

  the other, a keratin speculum.

  Inside the examination room,

  the specialist’s tear-dropped window screen

  resembles interconnected ovaries.

  We cover up so pedestrians can’t see

  our naked bodies on the bed’s off-white

  wrinkled sheet. I dress and leave

  and it finds us again outside the casino –

  the train’s waiting tunnel, endless and green.

  DOVECOTE

  Feet folded beneath my body

  like the talons of a dove.

  I don’t speak its name and forget

  the shape of its vowels on my lips.

  Each step a hesitation,

  the ice forming underneath.

  My mother plucked out her hair.

  The mourning dove, its feathers.

  Calluses torn from my heels,

  strips of skin pulled away.

  The stillness of its body startled me,

  the pigeon fallen to concrete.

  Will you deny those who cannot speak

  the mouthing of syllables?

  It is the body’s impulse to heal

  before the mind perceives.

  In the morning, each step stinging,

  I walk toward uncertainty.

  Collagen eschews a woven formation

  for the scar’s glassy alignment.

  In the bathtub, my feet white

  with bands of swollen tissue.

  Forgetting is a kiss inverted,

  a breath drawn from the lips.

  Let me turn another corner

  in this tender blue skin.

  A drop of blood from its beak,

  claws curled beneath its body.

  A wound that never heals

  but is torn open again and again.

  That’s what love is. Outside

  my window, the endless cooing.

  LAST WALK

  Tired of wandering the same prairie

  roads outside the city, tired of parking

  on the same patch of flattened grass

  beside the trail marker. Tired of climbing

  over the barbed wire, tired of waiting

  for trucks to pass before crossing the dirt

  highway. Tired of brushing ticks off

  the fabric of tucked socks, plucking not-yet

  swollen abdomens. Tired of descending

  into the branches. Tired of finding a way.

  Tired of feeling limbs snap back as I follow

  you toward a path, tired of reading the map.

  Tired of squishing purple berries between

  index finger and thumb, tired of feeling

  numb. Tired of swatting flies, tired of saying

  I’m thirsty, asking for a drink of water

  from the bottle you carry. Tired of deciding

  how much farther to go. Tired of taking

  the same tired photo, tired of rusted tractors

  parked in a more or less straight line,

  tired of being tied to the grid superimposed

  on the terrain, tired of crouching beside

  a hole in the ground waiting for a glimpse

  of something alive before turning away.

  PRAYER FOR THE UNDOING OF SPELLS

  With this ring, prompting mall jeweller

  to deem me waitress in want of a talisman –

  this ring invoking the superstition a vein

  runs dire
ctly from fourth finger to heart –

  this ring I had resized three times,

  unable to adjust to the grip it held on me –

  this ring I dream I wear again,

  wriggling it back and forth over my skin –

  this ring a nervous tic –

  this ring reached for as I once reached for him –

  this ring causing welt, inflammation, bruising –

  this ring discovered stashed in a blue organza bag

  and held in my palm, lighter than expected –

  this ring a symbol, a stone, now shed

  I DREAMED HE CAME OVER

  With a two-year-old little girl

  that was his and turned out to be yours too

  and we didn’t even know you had a baby

  He was going to raise her

  and you weren’t going to be involved

  IMMACULATE CONCEPTION

  The Christ Child appeared to us true

  to life, his wooden body finely carved,

  then sanded, his skin painted and glazed,

  blond hair falling in loose ringlets.

  His fat cheeks blushed red as the apple

  held in his hand, a slight cleft in his chin

  inviting us to take him in. The cloister’s

  nuns commissioned for him cribs of gold

  and silver, dressed the child in garments

  of lace, silk, and satin, said their prayers,

  then rocked him. Sister Margaretha

  was gifted her doll upon taking her vows,

  and woke to the child playing in his crib,

  bidding that she hold him. She took him

  in her arms, the poor thing. Did Mary

  fare any better at pinning a cloth diaper

  on the baby Christ’s powdered bottom?

  As the child cooed, she swaddled him.

  He kissed and cuddled her, then said

  solemnly: If you do not nurse me,

  I will take myself away from you the moment

  you love me the most! Margaretha held

  the Christ Child against her bare breast

  and he suckled cupid’s bow on her nipple,

  drinking. On Sunday, she organized

  a pageant for the other lamb’s brides:

  the child resting in his crib of velvet finery

  glimpsed a later-in-life version of himself

  riding the palmesel into Jerusalem. Mounted

  on an ass, his naked toes dangled above

  the donkey’s hooves, wheels of his cart

  squeaking as his toy encircled the lavish crib.

  Margaretha didn’t anticipate the strangeness

  of this encounter for the baby; the child

  began fussing at the sight of his twin,

  contorting at the palm fronds thrown.

  As Margaretha burped him, his brow

  furrowed at Older Jesus’s majestic pose,

  then his lips curled into a neat smile.

  Was it happy recognition of divinity?

  Gratitude for Margaretha who’d surely

  grind her bones for his warming fire?

  His passing gas sounded a squeal of relief.

  ANNIVERSARY

  In a Toledo cellar, two euros revealed ex-voto

  of the Hand of Fatima with birds of paradise.

  The last El Greco my husband showed me

  was Burial as I sat in a pew, unmoved,

  escaping the Eye of Conscience. We descended

  on escalators cutting through ancient walls,

  passed a pigeon’s emaciated body,

  Bosch-like and grotesque, its feathers bristled

  from its needle beak. Beneath this gold ring

  is a depression. Yours, a promise to throw it

  in the sea, and moments later to always keep it,

  the band I unearthed at the top of a mountain

  as a preteen. On our third anniversary,

  I changed my flight. We fought and cried.

  Our trains went in opposite directions,

  Bloomsday severing the thread it had tied.

  OBLIVION

  Halfway from Toledo to Portugal,

  I became a ghost in the empty seat

  next to you. In Spain, my chest

  tightened with clumped hair

  and matted sheets, a round stone

  wedged to my heel telling me

  I had to leave. In my mind, I was

  still crossing Lethe superimposed

  on the Bow River where I once

  watched you scatter a canister

  of ashes and bone, and later crossed

  its frigid water to escape a bear.

  I feared the knee-deep current

  would pull me away, not because

  my interpretative skills are weak,

  but because I believe my body

  matches how I feel inside – flimsy.

  I still think I can go back and find

  you reading the Tao in the Madrid

  laundromat, telling me I can’t just

  run away from the parts of myself

  I like the least. But where outside

  of oblivion will I ever find peace?

  In any of those lonely train rides

  through picturesque landscapes,

  passing vineyards and churches

  I saw only through your screen,

  tell me, did you too feel free?

  CATALOGUE

  I was beside you at Mount Parnassus,

  beside you at the Villa of Masks.

  Beside you at the Bow River,

  scattering your aunt’s ashes.

  I was beside you at Keats’s apartment,

  beside you at Maison Muzot.

  Beside you in the streets of Paris,

  the Appian Way, the catacombs.

  I was beside you at Auschwitz-Birkenau,

  beside you in the room of hair.

  Beside you viewing the markings

  the prisoners carved in the stone.

  I was beside you in the hallway of faces,

  beside you at the killing wall.

  Beside you in a swarm of teenagers

  riding the bus, singing Sean Paul.

  GORGON

  If the body slows when oxygen thins,

  my skin solidifies to my particles’ hardening.

  Dying conquers in degrees; calcium ions

  binding with protein ossify when adhered

  to muscle, so skin turns to stone. The gorgon’s

  steady gaze anticipates rigor mortis. In breath’s

  choking, atoms tire, or as in decomposition

  seep outside the body and are released. Death

  is a transformation, my atoms indistinguishable

  a table, this book, or tree. The ego

  is freed in the sense that I breathe the same air

  as Homer, the same fire Heraclitean –

  but there is no me. Even the cells of my brain,

  which holds the self, my personality,

  are swapped out in seven-year cycles.

  All that I seem to be could be shaken

  by blood clot or incision, disrupted by an OD.

  These are some of the things that hydrogen atoms do,

  given fifteen billion years of cosmic evolution. Our bodies

  in their movements cling to the concrete world,

  a glimmer caught in a gorgon’s petrifying stare.

  SATURN RETURN

  Before carving reindeer, walrus tusks,

  before horses painted on cave walls,

  all most early humans did was fashion

  axe heads from hunks of chalcedony,

  jasper, and flint, cryptocrystalline quarried

  and hauled to the carving site. We worked

  obsessively, breaking blocks of basalt

  into hammerstones in teardrop shapes,

  beating rock against rock, lithic flakes

  falling like snow, layering skin with ash.<
br />
  Was it ritual, pragmatic, a nervous tic?

  One of us strayed from the carving site.

  Another pulled a clamshell in two,

  and found an iridescent whorl not unlike

  the wash of green when we gazed

  at the night sky. I wanted to hold him

  like a brother, this artist, when I saw

  him sleeping in the loam, but flattened

  to the bog he appeared so lonely.

  Were we all this alone? It was the sky

  that called us forward, to depart

  our planet’s terrarium to celestial spheres.

  The stars that lent us these atoms

  would take our flicker of energy within.

  We’d be calmed in our coming home,

  like holding a slab of rock perfectly fitted

  to our hands’ flesh and striking stone.

  LEAVING THE GARDEN

  The museum bottlenecks

  with bodies in the entranceway,

  drones bumbling into one another.

  This leg cramp that woke me up,

  demon Rumpelstiltskin, pulls me apart

  when you speak my name.

  The lights dim as I stand before

  The Garden of Earthly Delights, bigger

  in person than on my leggings.

  You linger in the antechamber,

  gazing on The Last Judgment triptych:

  two of its panels devoted to hell.

  If the room is closing in it’s because

  it’s too small for the both of us now.

  The grey-brown ink of Bosch’s warped

  figures drew this study of monsters:

  a thrown brochure setting our ship

  of fools in flames as I thrash through

  the fire for a lifeboat to cling to.

  Bosch’s grotesques – his beehive

  and witches – were drolleries

  in the margins of our melded book

  of hours. We left the garden

  and our life turned into grisaille panels

  slamming shut. The creation

  of the world sealed in a glass orb.

  Earth and all its wonders closed.

  THE UNICORN TAPESTRIES

  As hunters enter the woods,

  we wander the room of tapestries.

  Medici’s horn in the corner

  casts a gleam that seizes our vision,

  a narwhal tusk masquerading

  as the unicorn’s tapering wand.

 

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