After Dinner, When You Ask What I Fear Most
I keep a growing encyclopedia catalogued
alphabetically by name, color, and caliber.
Always at the ready. Like reverse bodyguards they
are coiled to jump in front of me, ready to burst into flames
at the mere suggestion of their names, a hint of their scent,
a side-eyed shadow of their form, the flicker of a sound as their wings click
against each other in the dark. Sometimes
all it takes to conjure one is a friend of a friend of an inkling
as the conversation takes a sudden, arm over
arm steering turn in the direction of the things I can’t talk
about. Or the ones I can’t seem to stop talking about, they fall
out of my mouth and onto the floor with a wet thud
and I can see on everyone’s faces that I have made
a horrible mistake. There’s no putting back that dark
animalian thing sitting between us, black
as a nudibranch, slick
as a slime eel, dead
as a manta ray pulled into our world
and hanged by her face in an unfamiliar vertical stance, top heavy
as if balanced on the tip of her vestigial defense system,
anachronistic, long deemed unnecessary by evolution, nature,
and the blank fact that she’s the biggest of
all in the neighborhood. There’s no ignoring it
anymore and I can see by your face that you’re not
acclimated to such things although I am steeped in them,
the things that keep me up all night, afraid to sleep
because that’s when they rise to the surface
ratchet my jaw open wide and step out my mouth
in night terror screams and sleepwalking punches.
Although I’m fully aware I can’t possibly
absorb the blast I jump like it’s a grenade and you’re my
admiral, and I’m slipping in its slimy resistance, spreading it all
around and over myself and in my eyes all I can do is
apologize for the mess I’ve made, and so
these are the things I fear most. The question I
ask you now is will you be able to describe them to the sketch
artist and can you recognize them in the lineup? Can you
remember their faces as well as your own, and can you begin to
understand how it is to be the one always always
always at the ready? Because after
all this embarrassment, there’s still
all of the things I’ve held back yet.
This is just the flash that blinds you,
a bullet-hole-laced edge of the slip I let show, because even
after I rise to my knees, cough the last
arsenical cloud free from my lungs while the
artillery blasts fade to the sound of Taps in the distance,
at long last, we haven’t even gone past the letter A.
E.V. Noechel (she/her) lives with OCD, Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, severe chronic pain, and an assortment of delightful animals. She is devoted to animal rescue and advocacy and through this work has learned what an honor it is to be trusted by another species. Her work has been repeatedly nominated for the Pushcart Prize and has received generous support from North Carolina Arts Council, the Vermont Studio Center, Headlands Center for the Arts, United Arts Council, The Culture and Animals Foundation, and I-Park.