oyster on the shore, now a shell. a flash descends, descendants, iridescence, like a hummingbird. sand and water hold the sky soft while the sun lets itself out.
– it was so bad that pig. it was eating the chicks. i saw it. sitting on the porch, i saw the hen come walking there, and then the line of chicks following. then the mouth – a pinching motion with the hand.
a pearl, that coy self-image, floats over kelp forest conversion. surgeon fish swarm like a choir. a choral coral, the song proceeds.
– i’d be looking out the door and see this great commotion as the chickens came squawking into view, the pig, so gory and charging, just behind. that night, i told my husband that he had to kill this pig, but he just laughed it off. i was enraged. the third time it happened i couldn’t control myself my husband and my sons were out on the boats so i went to the kitchen grabbed the knife and slit the animal’s throat myself –
the image depicts forefinger and thumb stretching, transposed to the chest, rigid as autopsy as illustration as memory, towards koi fish, algal sunlight, a sea taste.
– and there was blood. my hands were covered in the blood but i was calm. i rinsed it off the knife, and went across the road to knock on hector’s door. he saw my hands, and went then running on to town. of course, the cleaning wasn’t easy, but we had meat for my son’s wedding, and that’s even after trading half for two new piglets. you can’t let them, the pigs, eat your fish or chicken scraps. that is the rule. that’s how they get the taste –
the crash and rumble, white foam and wrack, then the brief, anticipatory silence. something forgotten and then remembered in a perfectly wrong moment.
– i cleared the cliffs and built the restaurant, all by myself, with simple tools.
i pushed the boulders off into the waves –
bending glass, the wall crests
gauze shrouds and tree branches corrugate
the roof. some things are particular and sharp
turtle eggs, ceramic pans against
azure walls, black shells, a crystal
cup glinting in the damp sun.
a crust to break
Sage Bard Gilbert is pursuing an MA in Literary Studies at the University of Denver and has received a Fulbright Award to study in Chile in 2020. As an undergraduate at the University of Denver, he received the English Department’s Olna Fant Cook Award and the Environmental Science Program Award. He hopes to make a soup sometime later this year.
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