\u201cBecause I\u2019ll Never Swim in Every Ocean\u201d<\/b>
\nby Catherine Pierce<\/i><\/p>\n
Want is ten thousand blue feathers falling
\nall around me, and me unable to stomach
\nthat I might catch five but never ten thousand.
\nSo I drop my hands to my sides and wait
\nto be buried. I open a book and the words
\nspring and taunt. Flashes\u2014motel, lapidary,
\npiranha\u2014of every story, every poem I\u2019ll never
\nknow well enough to conjure in sleep.
\nWhat\u2019s the point of words if I can\u2019t
\nown them all? I toss book after book
\ninto my imaginary trashcan fire.
\nOr I think I\u2019ll learn piano. At the first lesson,
\nwe\u2019re clapping whole and half notes
\nand this is childish, I\u2019m better than this.
\nI\u2019d like to leave playing Ravel. I\u2019d like
\nto give a concerto on Saturday. So I quit.
\nI have standards. Then on Saturday,
\nI have a beer, watch a telethon. Or
\nwe watch a documentary on Antarctica.
\nThe interviewees are from Belarus, Lima, Berlin.
\nEveryone speaks English. Everyone names
\na philosopher, an ethos. One man carries a raft
\non his back at all times. I went to Nebraska once
\nand swore it was a great adventure. It was.
\nI think of how I\u2019ll never go to Antarctica,
\nmainly because I don\u2019t much want to. But
\nI should want to. I should be the girl
\nwith a raft on her back. When I think
\nof all the mountains and monuments
\nand skyscapes I haven\u2019t seen, all the trains
\nI should take, all the camels and mopeds
\nand ferries I should ride, all the scorching
\nhikes I should nearly die on, I press
\nmy body down, down into the vast green
\ncouch. If I step out the door, the infinity
\nof what I\u2019ve missed will zorro me across
\nthe face with a big L for Lazy. Sometimes
\nI watch finches at the feeder, their wings small
\nsuns, and have to grab the sill to steady myself.
\nMetaphorically, of course. I\u2019m no loon.
\nLook\u2014even my awestruck is half-assed.
\nBut I\u2019m so tired of the small steps\u2014
\nthe pentatonic scale, the frequent flyer
\nhoarding, the one exquisite sentence
\nin a forest of exquisite sentences.
\nThere is a globe welling up inside of me.
\nMountain ranges ridging my skin,
\noceans filling my mouth. If I stay still
\nlong enough, I could become my own world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cBecause I\u2019ll Never Swim in Every Ocean\u201d by Catherine Pierce Want is ten thousand blue feathers falling all around me, and me unable to stomach that I might catch five but never ten thousand. So I drop my hands to my sides and wait to be buried. I open a book and the words spring … Continue reading “echoes of a bell jar”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[447,911,1722,128],"class_list":["post-3818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-life-in-general","tag-limbo","tag-poem","tag-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/foxtongue.com\/dreampepper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/foxtongue.com\/dreampepper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/foxtongue.com\/dreampepper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foxtongue.com\/dreampepper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foxtongue.com\/dreampepper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3818"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/foxtongue.com\/dreampepper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3818\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/foxtongue.com\/dreampepper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foxtongue.com\/dreampepper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foxtongue.com\/dreampepper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}