A Time Glowing + Volary
A Time Glowing
The fact of it was simple rupture, a crush of muscle in the stomach. My pupils constricted by white that sang pitch and pressure in my head. My lips were numb. For a month I moved in incandescence; the matter that overcame, also lifted me; whatever suspended, passed over.
Buoyant in my bright chamber, the closest voices bubbled in periphery, floated out of sight when my eyes tried to follow.
The surprise of joy was its force
into a body it didn't fit; my excitement might have split the skin, before "It's finally happening!!" reached me. I should have been afraid, but it was all below me, too far outside.
When a wave moved out of me, as massive and weightless as a sigh—the light faded into ordinary pain, uneven over the skin. It didn't sing now; I didn't notice the quiet at last. I was quiet myself,
set down with my last softness,
My torn places craved days of sleep. In listless relief, I craved
the body cleft from mine, that bled a runnel down my hip and thigh, the spilled fat steaming. And still crave it
with a wet mouth:
I swallow for flesh, the pink of hema,
to take a life
whole in that mouth,
hold something that was
born inside it.
I like it. I want it to stay this way.
Volary
locally sourced
Two nights ago I dreamt about a fast-food spot. They asked me if I wanted to try
the sperm and eggs.
A voice from the transcounter said, "It comes on a muffin. Don't worry–we just
use bull sperm."
I had to breathe through my nose until I got to work.
So right away my unease is of a hidden witness in the Sunday heat.
The cook's white sleeve ends in a glove white as the shell; the egg is swelling in
the palm. The insides drain from his hand like pus from an abscess, or fat under
a scalpel, running with hot butter over toast.
The man next to the woman says: "Gotta break some eggs, right?" Laughter. My
friends sit to eat their embryos with orange juice and coffee.
Any one of them can be of double yolk. May conceal a bleed with more than one
string of mucal red to whisk into the pan, then the omelette to discolor on the
plate
Which shell will peel around a chick with saturated feathers and its eyes shut?
Fascinating, to probe the wet body. How soft are the bones? Are they dissolved
or will they break when I press the fork down in its side? It's the same
as when she showed me the white cooling on her tongue and smiled. I gagged.
"That's the price; head's a seller's market. No couples discount." She swallowed
and laughed at the hard swelling in my throat. I'm about to retch again:
a glutinous mass spills and hisses on the silver grill. What else is hidden in the
membranes here?
Blue, speckled, or dun, each is
the body of a secret kept.
So I pick away and try looking from the outside, searching in the edge of a hole
with one finger hooked.
What's there? Do these friends have their bleeds and twinned insides hidden?
Perhaps we're hatchling adults, soaked and steamed.
We've pressed enough bodies to know them. But
I don't remember what they look like when we get up to leave
just the swallow, indifferent of
milked yolk, whites and their aftertaste.
Andrew Aulino (he/they) received a BA in German and English from Kent State University. He lives in Northern California and works as a freelance translator.