“Wind on Water” © Bonnie Matthews Brock
Hagfish and Remora
The Mime Keeper, the Parrot and the Cornered Dog all belong together in the same way the Lamprey, Remora, Hagfish and Eel fall under the order of scavenging fish, eating dead animals and plant debris
Dancing around commensalism and parasitic violence
The Mime Keeper, too selfless for its own good
Its body broken down and tapered into nothing but abandoned bones
and stiff cloth
It screams from its eyes but remains silent, drowning in the wasted time
of my youth
It and the Remora do not harm their hosts. They feed off of their left-
over scraps
Never eating anything of their own, always consuming discarded,
regurgitated waste
In thanks, they attach themselves to rid the host of predators
The Parrot spends its days within itself but amongst others perfecting
its mimicry
Like the Lamprey attaches itself to a host, the Parrot chooses its voice
The Lamprey rasps and punctures the skin, sucking the life and draining
the host
(Reverse) Darwinism has created the Parrot in gods image
It has no need to attach itself as it drains the host
Instead it grooms its vibrant colors as it repeats what it hears, never saying anything it hasn’t already heard before
It is unable to think for itself and means absolutely none of it
The Parrot does not mimic the Mime Keeper, but the Cornered Dog who cries to the darkness and snaps in the light
Nursing its pups until it no longer has interest
It and the Eel lie and wait
Teeth bared, they strike when prey is disarmed
I resent each one of you
And what is left but the Hagfish? Who, once coming upon a dying or decaying animal, devours savagely. I know where the hagfish is,
Olivia Shearer: “I am graduating from Indiana University this year with a degree in English. I love Shakespeare and I am a Nerdfighter (DFTBA). Life feels very isolating sometimes and this poem came from those feelings.”
Bonnie Matthews Brock is a Florida-based photographer, as well a school psychologist. She loves hiking the urban and woodland trails of “anywhere” (and pausing often to shoot photos) with her very patient husband (and often collaborator), Ted. Her images have been featured on the covers of magazines such as Ibbetson Street, Wild Roof Journal, Poesy Magazine, Humana Obscura, and Arkansas Review; as well as on the pages of publications such as Oddball Magazine, Ember Chasm Review, Beyond Words Literary Magazine, Beaver Magazine, and Lateral. Her works are archived at institutions such as Poets House NYC, Brown University, and Harvard University.