Edited by Dava Sobel
In a year of panic, envy any creature who estivates in the heat. Line a cavity with mucus & hunker down. A bunker hardens around you. Watch the river shrivel without worry. In the 1950s, humans dug up backyards, poured concrete, stocked canned goods. The lungfish feeds not off Spam but from its own muscle, digests itself into slime & vitamin. When the rivers flood again, emerge from your opposite hibernation. Your legs don’t walk, but they taste. Masticate, mash, gulp, slurp. Scientists say you are in a constant state of agitation, but they are just jealous. They too want to touch everything again. To pull themselves from the muck & mire. They watch you gulp a goldfish. Exhale orange flakes. Swim between stars in this little galaxy, the one you built wholly from yourself.
In a year of panic, envy any creature who estivates in the heat. Line a cavity with mucus & hunker down. A bunker hardens around you. Watch the river shrivel without worry. In the 1950s, humans dug up backyards, poured concrete, stocked canned goods. The lungfish feeds not off Spam but from its own muscle, digests itself into slime & vitamin. When the rivers flood again, emerge from your opposite hibernation. Your legs don’t walk, but they taste. Masticate, mash, gulp, slurp. Scientists say you are in a constant state of agitation, but they are just jealous. They too want to touch everything again. To pull themselves from the muck & mire. They watch you gulp a goldfish. Exhale orange flakes. Swim between stars in this little galaxy, the one you built wholly from yourself.
