Has carved the stone bearings and sent them down-current,

And in turn, his children beat red, soft, red. I choose one of them.

you become the rock, the horse-headed post to which I hitch my slumbering shell.

I would pray on the points.

an overheated Saturday afternoon,

that you opened your bathroom cabinet

to find a 2-inch long cockroach,

perched atop your new toothbrush,

antenna held aloft like twin scepters,

testing the breeze.

What would you do?

I suspect the gallant would have gotten a glass

and scrap of paper

and carried it to safer shores,

but I took my last copy of the New Yorker, rolled it into a baton,

and followed the shocked scramble into the depths

of the bathtub, where I crushed the delicate

clockwork of its prehistoric brain

and scattered nimble limbs across the porcelain.

It is always shocking how easy killing can be,

especially faced with an unexpected enemy.

A toothbrush becomes a battleground,

a bathroom, a russet-tiled graveyard. I find myself

defending odd corners of my life with the temerity

of a freedom fighter, cutting a bloody swath across what

I consider to be mine.

]]> http://emilybrochin.com/2009/09/01/eulogy-for-an-invader/feed/ 0 Emily Brochin http://emilybrochin.com/2009/07/21/philly-fiction-2/ http://emilybrochin.com/2009/07/21/philly-fiction-2/#comments Tue, 21 Jul 2009 19:10:00 +0000 Emily Brochin http://emilybrochin.com/?p=338 ]]>

A short story of mine, written roughly 3 years ago, was just published in the anthology Philly Fiction 2. All I can see are the things I would change about it, but I have to say that for all the edits I wish I could make to that story, getting published never gets old.

If I hang my sweater

    just so

I may not remember the time

You took me up that impossible mountain.

Where it had rained. And there were no dry twigs to light (a spark.)

We walked down in dankness.

And though the trees were close and greenly smelling,

lights from the emerging campsites below marking the way,

I never thought for a moment

that I would ever have cause

to forget you.

Nothing bad can happen in Alaska–

It’s a known fact.

The cold burns it all out,

Whatever’s left, the dogs take to their little corners.

If there are people in Alaska,

I don’t know about them.

If there were,

I’d make no guarantees.

I am told I will remember nothing;

All I see inside the vision is a sunless bright.

It will take awhile to float to shore.

And between mooring and unmooring,

Every eye that has ever laid upon me,

Will be shut.

One-at        a-time,

By a blessed hand.

At the base of your pant-leg is a little machine

Which makes you able to touch me.

Below it is the cerulean paste board,

Jade-flowered bowl and glass insect eyes.

I say, the flesh is not hard.

It is the living dust you swept out of the room

In which there is nothing but smooth silence,

White and harsh

And big, dark stains.

Last night I became a tomorrow woman,
There was nothing I could do.

The morning sun offered itself early,
And I saw the swallows coming down.

The men in their identical beds chew a thick breath and struggle for
what used to pass as meaning.

A glass of juice is a beautiful thing.

And still—
Tomorrowland is caught in the meat of yesternight.

When the hands that reached out for comfort
Were hot with the fever of thoughtless life.