by Trane DeVore
No. 21
she steps from behind the counter, her body covered in moss
we throw ladles of water over her to secure our wishes and she breaks out in a hysterical laughter
and then, moving more slowly than the sloth itself (an animal that itself grows moss in its hair from the rich soil of its molasses sluggishness)
a series of boats emerges from her mouth loaded with a treasure of magical seeds, the eggs of plants that have as yet never once been seen
No. 58
gold flakes on a soft serve cone a brilliant glitter of precious
dandruff
across the vanilla landscape
gold is the dandruff of the stars, our skin flakes off raining down on the blank page
the gold rains down from the mountains in Kanazawa, is beaten as thin as discarded snake skin
(delicate enough to illuminate a manuscript)
— a galaxy of representational alchemy —
the gold flakes on the cold cone snake their way through the body, pure and untouched,
make their way out to the ocean, drift like jellyfish and settle in new constellations making up the secret language of bathymetry |