Modern Myths
Poetry by Délani Valin
Starbucks
I.
I used to sink southern ships
with the flick of a fin. Watched
old whaling captains lock
themselves in their chambers.
I followed the wrecks, swam
down to comfort sailors,
stroked their black-algae hair
as they succumbed to stillness
II.
The water warmed—
it scalded skin and scale.
Corals caved to acid. I found
the whales humming, high-pitched
like kettles. We swam
past rusting tankers spewing
waste, and garbage barges
trapping seagulls in plastic rings
III.
Tangled and squirming,
they hoisted me into harbour.
Held down, examined, probed,
I was brought to Pike Place,
to become a fish-tossed mascot.
I sometimes stare at the sea,
look at the floating, trashed
paper cups with the pictures of me
Tacit
There are no safe spaces
There never were—our mothers
whispered their woes
to the wainscotting, washed
a dull spotless white
We’re tired—there’s no end
to the leering in the streets, no
matter whether we shroud
our bodies, speak dulcet thanks, hiss.
Whether we meet those thirsting eyes
(blue, brown, hazel, green—any
remind us to shrink
into obedience)
Join me in the periphery,
hide in the forgotten harbours
on the fringes of reality—
Picnics on the yellowed grass bordering
transnational highways
Night jogs on still-warm airport runways
Naps in the elevator shaft just beyond the boardroom
Come and fade from the endless grasping
the compliments
the catcalls
the vi
ol
en
c
e
Barbie
The paparazzi say I shouldn’t exist—
I’m a waifish waste of a woman
whose organs couldn’t possibly fit
behind my ribs. They thought my silence
was suspicious. But back in my day
it wasn’t chic to speak. Ken said,
“Hell, you’re as big and bitchy
as any woman I’ve met.”
They call him a silver fox now.
It’s a masculine noun meaning
(usually divorcé) greying male
celebrity cast opposite
a woman under thirty.
And me? No silver in sight.
I bleach my roots every two weeks,
take the Botox shots between
the rhino- and labiaplasty. Some say
I look good for nearly sixty.
(As long as I keep my convertible
top up and stay tucked, mouth
shut, in my dream house)
Shapeshifter
i. Peter Parker
Show me the origin
of your pain. Did you adopt it in childhood
when you were given the wrong name?
Was it hiding in every pleat
of every floral cotton dress?
The radioactive bite of chemicals
course in your bloodstream. You say the needles don’t stop
your feeling inept. You say what hurts
the most is scrolling down computer screens,
clicking through profiles of people
who type i like you, i like you, except . . .
You knew changing would be hard
But nobody warned you about the loneliness.
ii. Lazarus
I watch you dig ever downward
in search of subterranean solace.
Maybe there will be romance
among the writhing white worms.
Kiss them, they are blind and jawless.
With them, you can forget.
What body? What name?
What anxious disassociating mess
of hyperventilating cold sweat?
Rise now. I followed you into the grave
and I am clawing at the dirt with broken fingernails.
I’m screaming your name. You may not believe
in your right to lift your chin, much less your right to live,
but I would give anything to resurrect you.
Ten thousand rats have died for your medications.
I would kill ten thousand more to see you lift one eyelid and find the sun
iii. Dr. Manhattan
I am not religious but I prayed for your ascent. Now
before me you stand taller than you’ve ever been.
Blue and built superhuman, supermachine.
We both know you’re omnipotent, a giant striding
through the neighbourhoods that forced you
to be complacent. Recognize your transformation,
hold me in your palm. I trust you.
Do you finally trust you are enough?
The Dryad
They found her on Mr. William’s lawn,
curled up on the crewcut cropped grass,
above four inches of top soil,
next to stainless steel sprinklers
His large greying t-shirt grazed
her velvet moss-whelmed thighs,
spindly burrs clung to ropey mats
in her cinnamon hair.
Her arms trellised ivy vines
entwined with pea plants—
their pods plump with pearls
A crowd formed around her dirt-spangled body,
joggers stopped to see the rhizomes sprouting
from her feet. Children ditched their bicycles
on the side of the street. They watched her unfurl,
rise, and open her eyelids—
Two succulents bloomed, unblinking,
like bulbous cabbages in the sunken
grooves above her nose. She fixed them
on her speechless company, held out a seed,
breathed, plant me a tree