My son is this creature, and: I wanted a full dose of never-mind of not-ever-, and: Maker, Collector: II, and: Homer's Wine Dark Sea

Abstract

My son is this creature, and: I wanted a full dose of never-mind of not-ever-, and: Maker, Collector: II, and: Homer's Wine Dark Sea Emily Pérez (bio) My son is this creature this bridleless stallionthis sharp-stippled seahorsearticulating. In my nightmarehe is screaming.In the daytimehe is screaming.The vibration of his growing bones.Such furious viability.Rams careening through a tunnel. Like a strangler fighe hangs upon my limbsleaning in to push away. He makes amendsretreating to the quicksandscaling all the scaffoldingI can't hold on my hands are sweatydon't come get me. He'll blind himself scratchhis only compass howlin a crowd of sworn-to-silencestones. In the quietof the evening every rod's aloaded gun. I was lucky [End Page 96] bearing a boy who shot straightsaid the things he felt:I was not made for Earth. His soul beats like a birdbehind windows. To soothe himselfhe fits his head beneaththe bed frame curveshis spine into a crackbehind the hamper. He made his birthday wishto mark himselfbeneath a leafed-out treecome true a thingI will not let himdo again. He needs the shockof a thing donesomething strongerthan his anger somethingforcing fortune from him. He crowds the dark he darksinto this boyhood wearshis hood unhinged. I wanted a full dose of never-mind of not-ever- will-I never-again not now and not endeavoring toplease turn your gaze to another thing lessalarming, I did not want unsettling, the pit in the grip [End Page 97] of the stomach's clenched fist, the wrench in the worksof the mason's bricks laid like a table set but the guestnot arriving, driving out into the rainto call the lost dog we've known only weeks he wrecksour sleep with responsibility. I wanted no last willand wishes, no testament unturned, unearned. I wanted sootheand settle, no nettle in the pudding, no pull in the stockingno pecking pullet waiting for the axe to fall. I wanted fulland saturated, uncurious, abated, tucked and trimmed,no hem unsightly, no nightly news, no wedge issue, no ledge. Maker, Collector: II I combine their shells, brother shells and sushi shells, they call them, into one glass jar, my need for order overriding their need for shells lining the halls in our landlocked house. They want personal museums, they want the ocean and everything in it. I want a clean swept floor. I want six months of my life packed in two small bags, just what I can carry. I need to send out my laundry and never get it back, I need a flood to reveal what's important. The mice remember the room where they've been shocked, remember the rock of electricity, use memory as a key to safety, memory deep in the body, but what if I've rewritten all I think, what if the journal even tells the lie I wanted to hear at the time about the life I thought I lived. Will I wish I had photographed the moose toy eating a homemade sandwich, someday will I wish I had saved the letters to our dead cat, the game pieces made from toilet paper rolls and floss. The people who photograph their food are said to savor it, the people who photograph their children are said to freeze them as ideals so they no longer see the wailing child before them, a glossy tricolor child parading like an eclipse. I wish to keep in my ear each new word passing their small lips, its original inflection: Mom, do you know what inportant means? A year to relisten to each past year, my own collection halls impassable with speech, I write it mar it claim it. Renaming makes it mine. I polish to a gaudy shine. [End Page 98] Homer's Wine Dark Sea Because we had not builtthe shade by hand we had no namefor the hue that swathed the...