CarrollBlog 1.24

Because I'll Never Swim in Every Ocean

by Catherine Pierce

Want is ten thousand blue feathers falling

all around me, and me unable to stomach

that I might catch five but never ten thousand.

So I drop my hands to my sides and wait

to be buried. I open a book and the words

spring and taunt. Flashes—motel, lapidary,

piranha—of every story, every poem I'll never

know well enough to conjure in sleep.

What's the point of words if I can't

own them all? I toss book after book

into my imaginary trashcan fire.

Or I think I'll learn piano. At the first lesson,

we're clapping whole and half notes

and this is childish, I'm better than this.

I'd like to leave playing Ravel. I'd like

to give a concerto on Saturday. So I quit.

I have standards. Then on Saturday,

I have a beer, watch a telethon. Or

we watch a documentary on Antarctica.

The interviewees are from Belarus, Lima, Berlin.

Everyone speaks English. Everyone names

a philosopher, an ethos. One man carries a raft

on his back at all times. I went to Nebraska once

and swore it was a great adventure. It was.

I think of how I'll never go to Antarctica,

mainly because I don't much want to. But

I should want to. I should be the girl

with a raft on her back. When I think

of all the mountains and monuments

and skyscapes I haven't seen, all the trains

I should take, all the camels and mopeds

and ferries I should ride, all the scorching

hikes I should nearly die on, I press

my body down, down into the vast green

couch. If I step out the door, the infinity

of what I've missed will zorro me across

the face with a big L for Lazy. Sometimes

I watch finches at the feeder, their wings small

suns, and have to grab the sill to steady myself.

Metaphorically, of course. I'm no loon.

Look—even my awestruck is half-assed.

But I'm so tired of the small steps—

the pentatonic scale, the frequent flyer

hoarding, the one exquisite sentence

in a forest of exquisite sentences.

There is a globe welling up inside of me.

Mountain ranges ridging my skin,

oceans filling my mouth. If I stay still

long enough, I could become my own world.