SurVision Magazine

London


1.

To be clear: I'm here
at your request. But
you london me,
cause me to slump-walk,
search-weary, map wrong side up
as you steer me down streets
that change names. You make up
games, grin as I flounder and lose.
How many entrances in the close?
Doorknobs crook and wink.
Your brows force me to choose,
you lemur me with disbelief
when I do.

Just pneumatic me to Waterloo.


2.

I saw a man at the Tate
londoned as I. His bowler
spun one way, his eyes another.
His cane, a tiny cyclone.
I took his free hand.
He gave it freely.
You're here to remind...
He smelled of mangoes.
I pointed, shook my head.
That's not the picture
you want, led him
like someone's mother
down the hall to Blake,
through darkness into Light.





Sola dosis facit venenum


The Dose Makes the Poison


I boil water in my forest. Rose thorns, moonstone.
Chanterelles swollen with intention.
The toxicologist is expected for tea.

I scatter corn on the ground, release the cock
from his tether. He pecks out words
I kick away. I pull a mirror from my sleeve,
bead my breath, fog my own reflection.
A tall silhouette advances in silvered glass –
I hand him his drink.

We drain our cups. Quickly. I cast him
to the ground. His wide eyes, certain,
blaze back a promise of equal proportions.

More to touch first. To taste.
His signet ring, three knuckles tall.
The ring his thumb and forefinger make,
to encircle a stand of birch.
His buckle, river-wide.
Waves of black hair ribbon onto grass.
Soft leather on his feet.

Snakes slither up, flick his ear.
His mount, to the side, whinnies.
Smell of orange confounds the breeze.

He grins at me.
My face foams like flies' eyes in his spittle.
My mouth, the night froth on his tongue.
We stay close to the cottage.
Then in.

Later, the horse. Nearer.
A brace of hounds like statues faces the door.
His wife, teeth fracturing,
their boy-child glistening with anger.
Where is my father?





Mikki Aronoff is from New Mexico. She is a writer and a visual artist, and is also involved in animal advocacy. Her work has appeared, or is forthcoming, in 3Elements Literary Review, The Lake, EastLit, Virga, Love's Executive Order, bosque and Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine, etc.