Emily Hiestand

The pond is like a mackerel skin tonight,

the mackerel like a beaded evening bag.

This is like that, that is like this, oh,

let's call the whole thing off and take it straight:

nothing is like anything else.

Even the parrot and the apish ape

mirror, mimic and do like — unmatched.

To begin:  algae, abalone, alewife —

each the spitting image of itself.

Likewise beetles (potato, scarab and whirligig.)

Nothing even comes close to barrel cactus,

nothing is more original than a bog,

more rare than the cougar and crane —

save all the above named.

I've never seen anything like it — dustbowls,

deer, the descent of man and estuaries,

flakes of snow (no two like) fire,

flax, gannets and gulls.

Honeybees and the Hoover Dam

are unique -- there is nothing like a dam.

Ditto inbreeding, ice ages, industrialization,

joshua trees, lagoons and the law

that to liken a lichen is tautological.

Indeed, the rule of diminishing simile holds

that all of these are idiosyncracies:

the Leakeys, legumes, maize, marsupials and moose.

Virtually nothing is extraneous here —

not orchids, ooze, pampas nor peat.

This is the world of plenitude and power —

every bit of it out of this world:

the rain and rattlers, sperm, swamps and swans.

As now we inch toward an end — vectors

and a winter that figures to be like no other,

say the selfsame earth is to your liking,

and let us continue — yeast, yuccas, zoons,

all things like, beyond compare.

When Quiet Woman comes,

she fills my ears

with morning glories.

Morning glories

grow out my ears –

big blue trumpets

in those soft canals.

My hearing is better

than a geezer’s,

but the dog howls

when the telephone rings.

I do not answer

with a flower in my ear.

I hear only wind

and the scuttle of trinkets

she tosses my way:

garters, crosses, scars,

glimmers and brass.

This little line got tongue-tied.

This little line is dumb.

This little line is cockeyed.

This… miracle! A blossom in the stream –

gibble gabble jaw jabber a priori blossom.

Weird how the word works.

BLOSSOM. Brainstem, blowsy,

two syllables, two lips oratorical.

Say Bloss some. Blah, blah, sum.

The blossom drums da Dum within the seed.

Hush, petal ear. Hear the earth’s ambition

creak – orchard to orchard.

Nova, Nova. It is a blooming universe.

Here is a line that opens like a starfish,

like a starfish eating sea blossoms,

embracing the blossoms and slowly,

deliciously, building the body of the world.