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*These poems are best read on a computer screen.
This Gleaming Dismay
So I tried to co-write this with a starfish
but they’re not very good at group projects. I asked
my would-be co-author to share its Google Calendar
and it said
which I thought was really rather rude.
I mean honestly, it’s just the sort of thing you’d expect
from an organism that doesn’t even know
what health insurance is. I did my best to collaborate
but for Christ’s sake, this fleshy idiot doesn’t even know
how to be misgendered on a Zoom call or
how to be harassed by climate change deniers
on Twitter. I asked it how to slow our apocalypse
and it said
as if it didn’t even know
what free verse was, or the Anthropocene,
or how to read a scientific article or how to panic
over the uselessness of art. Here I am
trying my best to sustain its brainless animacy
on scansion alone and it won’t even thank me,
it just says
I asked if it was scared of extinction
and it flinched from its own particular dissolution.
It didn’t know what a species was
and I got the feeling that
if it had known, it wouldn’t have cared.
So maybe this is a human thing, this gleaming dismay
that means we make co-authors of starfish, clutch
at linguistic symbiosis, fail at marriage
across a species divide. I suggested splitting up
and it
said
which even I can admit is fair enough.
It’s too late to back out now. We’re stuck with each other
through erosion and acidification, monsoon and drought.
And hey, when you think about it, we do have
at least one thing in common, and you know, I’d say
it’s a pretty big thing, maybe even the biggest thing,
maybe even the only thing: when you get right down to it
at least we’ve got our stellar ability, our show-stopping capacity,
our truly mind-boggling
propensity
to die
The Vulture
The tide takes dermis and tendon, hand and eye. Salt, air, birdsong
14,109.75 124.00 0.89%
wash through me. I watch the clouds
9,281.10 76.10 0.83%
and i am ending
in their anxious departure. A pigeon recites stock numbers
29,161.80 213.07 0.74%
to ward away misfortune, incanting the Dow Jones and the NASDAQ.
14,174.14 104.72 0.74%
40,086 277 0.69%
I let him hop away with my earlobe in his beak.
71.19 0.28 0.39%
A seagull sings the rising seas
6,616.35 15.69 0.24%
and i am ending
and dreams the planet ocean-drowned.
I let him free my lungs, brine-coated
458.32 0.81 0.18%
from between my barnacled ribs.
A vulture swallows my teeth.
4,255.15 7.71 0.18%
I say
25,757.83 40.41 0.16%
(you know)
52,551.53 76.66 0.15%
(most people
would stop to chat first)
0.8871 0.0005 0.06%
The vulture says
“What’s there to talk about? World’s ending.”
0.7714 0.0004 0.04%
(it’ll be ending for a while
what’s so urgent
you don’t have time
for please and thank you?)
110.08 0.00 0.00%
The vulture says
“Things to do. No time. Soon enough
3,589.75 -12.11 -0.058%
we’ll be too dead to have time for anything at all.
Don’t you have things to do?”
3,153.14 -4.83 -0.15%
(yes)
and i am ending
(i’m watching the sky)
4,085.51 6.73 -0.16%
“Aren’t you scared?”
34,393.75 -85.85 -0.25%
(no)
34,259 -98 -.0.29%
I let the vulture take my tongue.
and i am ending
And
27.995 -0.151 -0.54%
I am ending.
Waves make homes in my skull.
The sun falls down
1,867.70 -11.90 -0.63%
inch by inch, mile by mile.
0.0000 0.000 0.00%
The tide is high.
Mother of Thousands
So there’s this plant
called a mother of thousands.
It flings itself outward
like a universe.
Try This One Weird Trick
To Become Infinite!
Pluck a bee from a petal.
Split it between your teeth.
A childhood spent stealing sweetness
from honeysuckle? Buddy, that’s amateur hour.
Become porous. Learn how to be stung.
Now this mother of thousands,
it’s a bit of a character—
A bee’s last spasm
(organic, locally sourced, handmade)
should be sweet enough to burn the throat.
Doctors HATE It!
I said to it, you know
you need water to stay alive, and it said
wow, you’re so cute! I have no regard for death
but I’m sure that’ll be useful
for something that does :)
Pair with pinot noir, or for those less eager
to forget their limbs
in wine-dark dissolution,
rainwater.
I hear our every cell holds saltwater
like the sea.
The afternoon touches each stem
with a golden hand.
If you could take it in your palms
do you think it would be cold?
The bright hum of daytime
pours itself down my optic nerve.
Like snowmelt?
My pupils flutter like a honeysuckle petal
with an anxiety disorder.
Do you think it would be warm?
The Answer Will Shock You!
It stings.
That tip about water and life was soooo fake!
I ate the ocean whole
and my kidneys choked on the brine.
Figured out this great workaround, though!
Turns out
mutual drowning
is its own kind of marriage. Turns out
the ocean will unmake you
into more ocean
if you wait long enough.
Shaoni C. White writes and researches speculative fiction and poetry. Their poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Channel Magazine, Fantasy Magazine, Apparition Lit and Vastarien. Their short fiction has appeared in Uncanny Magazine and PodCastle. Raised in Southern California, they are currently working toward a BA in English Literature and Linguistics at Swarthmore College. Find them at shaonicwhite.com or on Twitter at @shaonicwhite.
