Erica Wright

Aviators in Search of Employment

 

The whales arrive,

and we board them.

They need navigation

since losing the Pacific

and its trash.

We need the comfort

of forestomachs,

to nestle into that

fleshy patience

until reefs require

attention—pull up.

The submariners

are forever lost

to those old iron-sides.

We are they now.

Lethargy settles

into our limbs,

and when we reach

the sunken cities,

we shut our eyes

 

[....]

Erica Wright

to the mossy skeletons

of those who came

before and were qualified.

Erica Wright

He who transplants, sustains

 

Our possessions grow alien

to ourselves. We spend days

 

picking silverware

from the neighbor’s field,

 

saying, “Lord have mercy”

and “What a harvest.”

 

During tornadoes, ditches

trump entryways.

 

We head for the mailbox

as the siren comes for us.

 

Maybe she respects our gall,

but it would be the first time

 

nature noticed us at all.

Someone says, “the storm

 

 

[....]

Erica Wright

has made a meal of this place,”

but our goods don’t merit

 

digestion. She vomits them

in the nearest town:

 

Franklin or someplace

we’ve never even heard of.

Erica Wright

Museum-Store Scams

 

There’s nothing to buy here we don’t already own:

plastic reliquaries and medieval gardens.

 

Let’s postcard us instead. You won’t be saying

anything about my escapades with machinery;

 

I won’t be dusting dandruff from your jacket.

In August, the unicorn is stabbed, and also

 

in September. Every day, in fact, the lance

is in the belly, and without flood or fire, will stay.

 

This is one reason people pray for the end:

to be dislodged.

 

 

 

Copyright © Erica Wright. White Whale Review, issue 2.2