Porcupine's Garden - Carol Shillibeer
In that meadow called trying to write there are necessary stinging life forms. What would we be without bees, and nettle tea? And of course, THERE butterflies are never pinned and leaves never pressed out of life. A coma perhaps, but no killing jar, or screw-down flower press, just a broken net of key strokes & THEREBY the freedom to perpetually follow the undulations of bustling verbiage. It is we of the functionally literate who HERE are rent from animal, air and ground; we that are between pages pressed TO BREATHLESS forms.
There in the distance a band of aspen>
green and smoking, the burnt bodies of old sentences>
sterile words, sacrificed ideas, washed and mixed with dirt>
wicked through roots>
t.r.u.n.k.s. and supple b.r.a.n.c.h.e.s.>
l.e.a.v.e.s. slyly piercing>
and under it all the porcupine>
m-m-m-img her gnawing way through
her garden's bark & sweet gourds from A-to-B-to->
See, quills can be softened on the tongue. The barb clipped CTRL-X, and beeswaxed thread, quills laid down brown to black to cream, tacked HERE on the backing, and HERE, and in time a porcupine grows out of the patterning of its own abandoned parts.
Would you take it>an enzyme's offered handshake<be deconstructed>like a bridge light<white and fizzing against the night's tongue>or quills pulled from a dead porcupine along the highway<quills bent to make earthly images>would you be the porcupine<to require muscles to bind barred hair against the skin in order to close in on love><barbule stir>letters flutter<an enigma machine forwarding>clay messages from bone boxes<could you dig out>one needle strike at a time from the pressed page>your lettered spine . tacked . like a quill against incessant & hungry
m.e.a.n.i.n.g.>
Originally published by The Newer York, 2014
Carol Shillibeer's poems have been published in many print and online publications, and received nominations for both Pushcart and Best of Net. Her most recent book “Lune /-/ aria” was released under the name Pearl Button by Dancing Girl Press.
