content warnings
reference to self-immolation, mention of war
[448 words]
Life continues during times
of disaster that take away countless lives.
Even in a world that doesn’t seem to last,
the future inevitably comes.
~Unknown
I. God and Myth
We exist in a different mode of experience. Floating in the
exoplasm of moth’s wings and vultures feathers, we
dance together. One of us has blue skin and hair like
the tides of the sea, sandy mixed with aquamarine.
That one is wrapped in orange fabric, and has a tear
dripping down the face. Next to her a grasshopper
stretches its legs and wears a cap of mourning.
There is no death in the quantum existence, but
chance explosions mean we will never be the same
from one moment to the next. Annihilation and creation
are the same here, sisters of the primordial father of
spontaneity. Every move is planned by entropy and
marred by the madness of probability. Another of us
floats by on a current of silky lightning, spinning off
a worm’s fleeting skin and with hair invoking the inferno
of the universe, the ever fading echoes of the first
and final explosion. We are all an afterthought.
II. Ecstasy of the Crow
In a different reality a murder encompasses the tree
of metal spires, lining the ground with pebbles and
slabs of asphalt, the tears of a previous existence.
The sun has turned to volcanic ash and burns a yellow
though the pollution of the desert. Black wings ride
the lazy currents; beaks pick at the remains. In a world
where only crows can see the future we might have
avoided this untimely end. The tree spins with a metallic
creaking. The scene is silent, frozen. There is no room
for regret when the very air is still. Scaffolding makes for
roots of exemplary rigidity. The murder makes itself a mind.
III. Stairs of Bone
Dragon bones line the steps in this faithful reality. A downed
plane burns with furious flame mere feet away from a stone
jar used to make kimchi. Tradition and modern warfare
mix to make the ancient world unbelievable. But the
future is inescapable; it chases you, burns your memory
and chasms reality. We can find ourselves by crawling
through the rubble of Bezonvaux, slipping in the cracks
of Oradour, tasting the blood on innocents, stepping
around landmines near the Korean DMZ, the nameless
villages lost to time and the willful deaths of historians.
Honey made in the wounds of war is the sweetest.
“. ..a human being, that is, the desperate emotion
of a woman who has joy, anger, sorrow, and pleasure.
The joy and despair, the emptiness, the endless
desire [is] observed through a woman.”
~ South Korean Nudist Painter Kim Heung-Soo
Paige Eaton (she/her) is a poet who is currently teaching English in South Korea and is originally from Rochester, New York. Her work has appeared in Long Winded Anthology, Unlikely Stories, Pink Hydra, and 7th-Circle Pyrite among others, and is forthcoming in Ghostlight: The Magazine of Terror and The Bitchin’ Kitsch. She enjoys walking outside and eating delicious Korean food.
