The beloved science teacher
does this every year: takes
a large glass container
to the front of the room,
shows it to the class empty,
of all but air before filling it
with rocks. Would you say this is
full, he asks, when no more rocks
– size of fists, potatoes, pig
hearts – will fit without falling
out. Yes, the students say. Then
he takes out a bag of gravel &
pours it in, the chips settling
in the holes. He grins as he asks.
“Would you say this is full
now?” Everyone says yes, now
it’s full. So he pours in sand,
& then water, & when
the meniscus strains at the glassy
surface, reflecting back all
the earnest faces in the crowd,
he says, “Yes, yes, now it is full.”
But in this dream I am here
in the crowd. I chuckle as I raise
my hand and walk to the front
of the classroom, pulse attempting
to escape the mob murmuring,
moisture gathering, here & there
where I hope it won’t darken
the fabric that hides my creases,
my bendable joints, the dead inside
limbs that still shuffle. I open myself
with a grunt, pour in a portion
of my anxiety, let it sink in.
Things start to wobble. Dread
eats away at everything, the rocks,
the sand, the water, the container.
The experiment shines like a pickle
hooked up to a battery. And I mean,
I know, I know nothing can be
created or destroyed, no matter,
no energy, I flinch as I watch –
waiting for something to blow.
Shana Ross is a new transplant to Edmonton, Alberta and Treaty Six Territory. Qui transtulit sustinet. A Pushcart and Rhysling nominated author, her work has recently appeared in Gigantic Sequins, Laurel Review, Phantom Kangaroo, Radon Journal and more. She is the winner of the 2022 Anne C. Barnhill prize and the 2021 Bacopa Literary Review Poetry competition, as well as a 2019 Parent-Writer Fellowship to Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing. She serves as an editor for Luna Station Quarterly and a critic for Pencilhouse.org
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