THE RUSTY TOQUE
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PAULA PARRIS EISENSTEIN


The Rusty Toque | Issue 10 | Poetry | June 30, 2016

Excerpt from Lae

This suite of poems is part of a larger manuscript based on the purported last diary entries of Amelia Earhart.

vii

Worked intently
these past two days
repacking plane,
eliminating
 
unessential
personal goods,
for example
Fred’s small tin case bought
 
in Africa
I notice still
rattles so can’t
be packed very full

viii

Restlessness and
disappointment
from not getting
off ground this morning
 
FN and I
commandeer a
truck, ford a small
river torrential
 
after tropic
rain, drive through grass
taller than the
vehicle, visit 
 
a village with
huts built atop
stilts where natives
train pigs for watchdogs

ix

On some huts are
carvings around
the eaves, grotesque
coloured animals
 
especially
crocodiles. I
see women for
almost the first time
 
One bends over
a small black cook
vessel from which
protrude two immense
 
cabbages. My
pidgin English
dictionary
doubtless worth the two
 
shilling expense
I learn from it
native women
are all called Mary

x

The natives have
their own words for
everything. For
instance large airplanes
 
are called “birds” while
small ones merit
only “insect.”
Because the surface
 
of my Lockheed
is even, not
corrugated
resembling the tins
 
certain biscuits
are shipped in from
England, it is
called the biscuit box

xi

Susceptible
to earthquakes, we
are told much of
New Guinea is silt
 
held together
by entangled
undergrowth. At
the rivers’ edges
 
pieces of land
break off, float out
hundreds of miles
to sea before they
 
disintegrate.
Little islands
you sometimes see
animals trapped on 
PAULA PARRIS EISENSTEIN is the author of the novel Flip Turn from Mansfield Press. Her prose and poetry has appeared in the literary magazines The Puritan,  filling Station and Descant, in the anthology The White Collar Book and as a broadside through Toronto Poetry Vendors.
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  • Home
    • Issue 1 >
      • Creative Nonfiction: 1
      • Fiction: 1
      • Screenwriting: 1
      • Poetry: 1
      • Contributors: 1
    • Issue 2 >
      • Visual Art: 2
      • Fiction: 2
      • Poetry: 2
      • Masthead: 2
      • Contributors: 2
    • Issue 3 >
      • Poetry: 3
      • Visual Art: 3
      • Comics: 3
      • Fiction: 3
      • Reviews: 3
      • Masthead: 3
      • Contributors: 3
    • Issue 4 >
      • Prose: 4
      • Poetry: 4
      • Reviews: 4
      • Visual Art: 4
      • Contributors: 4
      • Masthead: 4
    • Issue 5 >
      • Nonfiction Kathy Acker & McKenzie Wark
      • Drama: 5
      • Prose: 5
      • Poetry: 5
      • Film: 5
      • Comics: 5
      • Reviews: 5
      • Visual Art: 5
      • Video & Sound: 5
      • Masthead: 5
      • Contributors: 5
    • Issue 6 >
      • Poetry: 6
      • Prose: 6
      • Reviews: 6
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    • Issue 9 >
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    • Issue 10 >
      • Poetry: 10
      • Fiction: 10
      • Reviews: 10
      • Visual Art: 10
      • Film: 10
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      • Contributors: 10
      • Masthead: 10
    • Issue 11 >
      • Poetry: 11
      • Prose: 11
      • Reviews: 11
      • Visual Art: 11
      • Comics: 11
      • Contributors: 11
      • Masthead: 11
    • Issue 12 >
      • Poetry: 12
      • Prose: 12
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      • Visual Art: 12
      • Contributors: 12
      • Masthead: 12
    • Issue 13 >
      • Poetry: 13
      • Fiction: 13
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      • Comics: 13
      • Reviews: 13
      • Contributors: 13
      • Masthead: 13
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