Field Dressing My Favorite Animal by Rachel J. Bennett

Field Dressing My Favorite Animal

Rachel J. Bennett

It isn't about you at all but how / you led me here this gains clarity when / I see how my lost city is now one / of those Food & Wine spreads that spurs our want- / ing yet winds up looking exactly like / everywhere else ruled by some authori- / tarian force in this case our own but / it happens I've made it to the control / room I'm watching the flood and what comes next / is turning up the volume all the wa- / ter speaks a different language provides a / kind of breeze for our warm mechanical / wings but it's not flying we're after no- / thing that will cause anyone to buy any- / thing diabolical or shimmering / rather the intersection of these where / a clever manipulation of con- / trols has led all of us to the most beau- / tiful wreck because it's the most silent / and no one sees it the screens having gone / dark and this isn't what I set out to / find but I will save what little cathar- / sis is left like a desert plant the kind / surviving only in the pages of / The Doomsday Book of extinct things we thought / only people long gone could remember / the way it holds rain and I thought you would / know me if I could only send out a / flower like light from a dead star but end- / ing here sounded too much like ending in- / stead I penned endless in milk on a page / awaited the reinvention of fire

Rachel J. Bennett likes outliers. Her chapbook, On Rand McNally's World, is forthcoming (Summer 2015) from dancing girl press. A few places her poems live are Sixth Finch, Similar:Peaks::, Rattle, Big Lucks, Salt Hill, and Vinyl. You can find her on the M train and @rachtree11.

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