Magic Eye
When you catch my eye, I take off my glasses. That way,
there’s nothing between us. Sometimes, I like things
to be not too distinct, like an impressionist painting. Light
and color and mood more important than detail. I collect
Catholic kitsch, telling myself it’s ironic. St. Lucy with her eyes
on a plate. Baron Samedi with his broken sunglasses. I hold
eggs up to the light. I buy a house. Take a pregnancy test.
If a virgin can conceive, why not someone with no uterus?
I watch the minute hand, but it moves so slowly, I never quite
catch it. I take up yoga and time-lapse photography.
I search the light trails. I search the Crayola scribblings
of my nieces and nephews, hoping they will reveal something,
like those old Magic Eye posters. I could never see anything
in those either. Astigmatism. Light splinters in my vision.
My neighbor keeps chickens in a coop under her back deck. She
lets them out sometimes to flutter around the yard. They have no
concept of roads or jokes, of what came first; no notion of what
their entrails might disclose. I host a dinner party. Shuffle the cards,
pretend that I don’t know that hearts correspond to cups, try not to
think about emptiness. Attend a meditation retreat where emptiness
is the point. Start eating arugula, almost zero calories, praying for
the void to enter me. Find a god’s eye in the woods, purple yarn
dangling from the naked tree branches. A way into the labyrinth.
I need eye drops in ragweed season. Grumble about the clothes
the kids are wearing these days. Build a birdhouse. Buy seed.
Cry so easily. I stand at the mouth of a forest path, where the trees
form a tunnel, trying to see if it leads somewhere other than to
asphalt and traffic lights flashing red, trying to find the pattern
in chicken scratch. In the summer, I will stand at the other end,
chasing mirages on ozone red-alert days. I think I have loved
more than I have been loved, but there’s no reliable metric.
I hold Easter eggs up to the light. They lull me with their pastel
facades and promises of sweets. You have to carve your own path
to the center of God’s eye. Mark the way with purple yarn, hoping
someone will follow. A demon-red fox prowls in the undergrowth,
eyes yellow-green. Stop go yield. I plan baby showers for all
my friends. I plan kids’ birthday parties. Deviled eggs are my
signature dish. I tattoo myself with rabbits, with hearts and bones.
This is my only home so might as well feather the nest, even if I
dwell here alone. Look forward to Bloody Marys and mimosas.
Paint roses red. Build a pit for us to gather around the holy fire.
My journey has only just begun. My glasses discarded on the
bedside table. I don my sleep mask, craving perfect darkness.
Infinity can only be seen with the inner eye.
No Bees in Antarctica
The honeybee is not native to North America.
Europeans brought them over on ships,
planted hives in New England hillsides,
little shrines to their sweet tooth.
Indigenous people called bees “the white man’s fly,”
because the insects were a harbinger
of his fuckery. Wherever their drone
could be heard, plump black-and-yellow bodies
drifting through the sunflowers and the lilac,
the Indians knew to brace themselves.
Imperialists of all countries sent forth their shoots,
planting their languages, their customs, their gods;
except Antarctica, the bottom of the world,
has nothing to seize and no one to conquer,
has nothing to stay for or return to,
has nothing to dig up or tear down;
it remains a lesson in Zen,
on what is left when life is stripped to only
a light season and a dark, to lichen and rock,
to the flapless albatross,
to the emperor penguin who is the king of sacrifice,
to elephant seals,
barbarian selkies of the southern hemisphere,
who fast for a month as they slough off skin;
a land rich only in ice-locked secrets and suffering,
where we, the warm-blooded,
the blubberless and upright,
are the subjugated.
Monarch Funeral
When we were kids,
my little brother was the sort of kid
who brought ants and spiders inside
and called them pets. He cried
when Mom stepped on them or
sprayed them with Raid.
When we found a dead Monarch butterfly
in the garden, we had a funeral for it.
We said the Lord’s prayer,
laid wild violets on the tiny grave.
Now, I see him care for his children,
how tenderly he holds them,
leads them to the park.
He plants a garden.
He has plans to build a chicken coop.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he had
a bird feeder or two.
He wants to share with his family
the beauty and fragility
of winged creatures.
BIO
Lauren Scharhag (she/her) is an associate editor for GLEAM: Journal of the Cadralor, and the author of thirteen books, including Requiem for a Robot Dog (Cajun Mutt Press) and Languages, First and Last (Cyberwit Press). Her work has appeared in over 150 literary venues around the world. Recent honors include the Seamus Burns Creative Writing Prize and multiple Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize nominations. She lives in Kansas City, MO. To learn more about her work, visit: www.laurenscharhag.blogspot.com
