ROBYN READ
The Rusty Toque | Issue 3 | Poetry| October 12, 2012
JELLY BABY
The mule that sat in our living room
was good at hoovering. When he got to his loose-lipped action you had to wait to call your friends or watch TV if you wanted to hear a thing. But to get help without asking is as close as one can get to paradise this side of death. Remember the time you tried to ride the mule? From the beginning I was like no don’t. I hid my face in my ginger ale and you heel-toed your way over like a movie star or woman would. That’s when we realized the mule could sleep with his eyes open standing up steadily purring and if you ascended his back like a cliffside it might startle him into bucking the TV or your face in. Then there was the time the whole family was over for dinner and we put on a show for the camcorder ducking and crawling under the belly of the mule. Our father had a pacifier plugged in his mouth but that was just a gag too. Of course we had to get rid of the mule eventually. You loved that doll so much its pink docile body smelled like cherries. You put her down for a nap the mule lowered his mighty head closed his jaws around her soft belly, like a cat carries its young. When I told our mother at first she didn’t know whether I meant the doll or you. Take the mule outside to the widest of rivers for a drink. The rope across the river is covered with peanut butter. The mule can only lick so far before he has to wade into the stream and halfway through the rope licking nothing under his hooves except unknown depths he will again forget in his hunger and chomp down. HOW I WAS BORN A FISH beneath silt
lipid sac sustains bulb living being syncopation lit somber placoid eyes hemmed maw’s seams part to swallow motes the growth of a cambered peel — this was my fin have you seen that science fiction film you know the one with the little brain with feet eyeballs arched eyebrows and quite a distinct laugh he lives in the ocean inside a submarine or robot a bubble yes the brain has someone else drive to deal with shifting gears he listens to Journey eats pot roast surrounded by girls in tall boots with big hair I mean really big hair do not underestimate the grandeur of their hairdos these broads spindly arms draped around the brain their boyfriend as a tongue drives the bubble across the ocean floor the brain thoughtfully plans to conquer mankind despite blindness biological sonar slices thin salty sandwich tremors these count for my thoughts appetite for sound plays spoons cups peripheral acts of kindness to my palate echoes of others putter my fine-tooth gills awake manly men at the helm of a ship search for the remainders of other ships sunk down below a big TV eye blinks and blinks until it pops a red vein a signal of something other than a submarine or shark Nic Cage or Kurt Russell says, “look, a code being sent to us from down below” everyone nods in agreement but no one can crack the code (not even Sean Connery) it is complicated the combination to a safe in another language a series of clicks and whirligigs and we watch the film mouths full of popcorn we are laughing at the film from our futons and basements because we know the code was created by the brain who in his bubble at the bottom of the ocean is seriously planning to conquer mankind tendons yawn open calescence awakens my translucent body yet I am all the way down there rips through a noose tugging me upwards the spurs of my vertebrae assurance I am finally turning into something else —so the manly men grit their teeth open their lungs steady their suspicions and glee await the scent or sound or dream or thing that is chortling toward the water’s surface and “goddammit, we’ve got it!” they prepare to cheer just as they fall asleep hypnotized by the code coming from down below and as their ship sinks joining the other ships that have sunk we too fall asleep on futons in basements and that was how the brain in the bubble motoring along the bottom of the ocean managed to conquer mankind |
ROBYN READ is a freelance editor living in Calgary, Alberta. She was the Acquiring Editor of Freehand Books from 2009-2011, and she sat on the Canadian Creative Writers and Writing Programs Board of Directors from 2010-2012. This past winter she taught Canadian Dystopic Fiction at the University of Calgary, speculating with her students the various ways the world might end.
