Lori Lamothe
Happily
1. The swans in the pond are fake. Fake swans in a fake pond. Twin necks turned at exactly the same angle, twin gazes unblinking; white plastic drifting always in the direction of wind as if beauty were only a credit card and someone swiped it across reality. Off to the right a wooden arch minus the bride and groom: Imagine how sunlight bounced off the hard candy crackle of her designer dress, how it sank into the black lapel of his rented tux and shoe-shined vows. Applause on cue, as if someone were standing just past the edge of the video holding up a sign that read: Applause! 2. What if you x-rayed illusion? When the doctor snaps what you say and pins it up against Freud might the bones of a bad fairy tale actually be gorgeous? The wolf who waits in grandma’s bed, fangs glinting lust, eyebrows singed with sulphurous desire. Suppose what really concerns him is the texture of that red cape, that the only violence on his mind is the shock of seeing her hair fan out across a pillow. On the other hand maybe all you’re doing is slipping up behind Perspective, deconstructing as she sleeps: if you hit a glass coffin with a sledgehammer you can string the pieces across any open window. 3. At Knossos, Ariadne handed Theseus a ball of light, felt the familiar tug and knew he had reached the end of translucence. At Knossos, at the dark heart of labyrinth love stopped like a watch, no path left to follow back but obligation. No one really knows how the story ends. The only point of agreement is that he leaves her willingly or unwillingly on an island or not on an island with child or without. No one really knows how the story ends but it ends like this: mornings by the seashore she sells seashells to tourists and visiting demi-gods: lifts each abandoned pattern and holds it a moment against the ear’s echo. She doesn’t ask if they hear what she hears, sound of fire whirring off a spool, fingerprint of sparks dissolving in blue.
Lori Lamothe's poems have appeared or are forthcoming in 42opus, Blackbird, MiPOesias, Seattle Review and other magazines. She has a chapbook, Camera Obscura, which was published by Finishing Line Press.
