You sometimes wonder about
Pangea, the supercontinent
that existed 300 million years
ago. Can you imagine all seven
continents mashed together?
And only one ocean, the
Panthalassa, to encase us all?
You sometimes wonder
if we’re all just islands
now, a clunky
archipelago,
distant stars of the same
constellation. If continental
drifts and shifts
and quakes and rifts
shattered the puzzle
eras ago, can they
someday bind
our borders,
forests, rivers,
and ranges?
Can we ever
be pressed
back together
again?
*Pangea first appeared in a chapbook titled Clotheslines
Mathieu Cailler’s poetry and prose have been widely featured in numerous national and international publications, including the Los Angeles Times and The Saturday Evening Post. A graduate of the Vermont College of Fine Arts, he is the recipient of a Short Story America Prize for Short Fiction and a Shakespeare Award for Poetry. He is the author of Clotheslines (Red Bird Press), Shhh (ELJ Publications), and Loss Angeles (Short Story America Press), which has been honored by the Hollywood, New York, London, Paris, Best Book, and International Book Awards. His poetry collection, May I Have This Dance? (Black Magic Media), is slated for publication in December of 2017.
He made it possible. He was formerly a fabulist.
He was faceless, but he was ugly, graceless
and he made everything disappear.
aligning
as fingers
deftly dance
on checkered
smooth plastic
disco stage
Adam’s countenance: beer cask-heavy
his eyes: glazed shallots
his smile: a split itself
Now take away the need
for moisture and the deteriorating
qualities of autumn. The veins
and stems will release as well.
Take away the release. Take
away the seasons.
When Taylor Swift was at the gym in Japan
she watched the muscled back of a man
moving up and down a heavy machine
made by other heavy machines for men.
of spontaneous human combustion,
of pictures with the Cherry Hill Mall Santa,
of a stapler after getting my wrist stuck to my teacher’s green bulletin board,
and on the tv
a drag queen
sharing her recipe
for sun tea
asks us if we want to
watch her take a break
and we take a break
Honeywell closed their Minnesota plant quietly
and the addition of warning stickers on album covers
would save the children along with D.A.R.E., Nancy
and Tipper directing the conversation, for some reason.
I read, I traveled, I, Lina, thief’s daughter, a discarded toy by the campfire
at night, my planets – burned by sparks,
burned by coincidences, in my eyelashes – stalagmites of ashes.
Because Phil Collins is for fools and old ladies.
Because the ocean’s too wide a body of water
for a commando to cross alone. Because gentlemen
never kiss and tell, and soldiers never share
their kill count. Because you teach the meaning
of words like ‘amorous’ and ‘varnish’ and ‘leave.’