After also coming out of the ocean,
you said it hurts to dance on two feet.
Try eight knives, balancing on eight blades,
eight blue streaks of blood on the ballroom floor;
a thing worth having two of is worth having more.
And the kingdom nears, and the tide fades.
And I’m left with just the bold deceit
of my new symmetry in motion.
After my awkward crawl from the sea
post-deal with the hagfish, for eight new legs
and gaudy silks to grow and to wear and a hunger,
a curiosity regarding why no one finds it weird: why men
still swarm around me, why men yet kneel before me when
I am sticky with my ribbons and lace. I tongue their
meat, while the pulsing package inside me begs
for escape, to eat, to spin huge and free.
If it’s worth having two, it’s worth eight.
If it’s worth eating a little, it’s worth eating a lot.
If I have the chance to gain some hunger at the cost
of my soul, I will make that hard wager at the hagfish’s table.
Stretch out my new limbs, segmented & sharp & dewy & able,
never look back at the tides or the tail that I’ve lost,
instead across the kingdom at the prey I caught;
and I gorge, I barter, I multiply, I create.
* * *
Amelia Gorman is a recent transplant to Eureka, California and you can usually find her walking her dogs or foster dogs in the woods or exploring tide pools. Her fiction has appeared recently in Nightscript 6 and is forthcoming in Cellar Door from Dark Peninsula Press. Read some of her recent poetry in New Feathers and Vastarien. Her first chapbook, Field Guide to Invasive Species of Minnesota, is available from Interstellar Flight Press.