Caroline Davidson
Far Water I get fatter listening to this opera. There are so many high notes to swallow, and then I also swallow the relic stone of the angel’s mouth—
rubbed by weather into a surgical mask. The mask itches on the way down.
Give me the foot of the night heron. I’ll swallow that, too. During the arioso the man beside me speaks. It is as if he says, “Do not get used to seeing” he says “me near this” he says “marina.” Some need for the circuitous. As if I reply, “When you smoke your veins exhaust blue like the virgin’s mantle. When you smoke you exhale on the city’s syringe where I take my best baths. Where I am ocean-heavy with beaks.”