Vessels
Vessels Paisley Rekdal Shouldn't it ache, this slit(裂缝) into the sweet and salt mix of waters comprising the mussel(蚌), its labial meats winged open: yellow- fleshed, black and gray around the tough adductor(内收肌)? It hurts to imagine it, regardless of the harvester's denials, swiveling(旋转的) his knife to make the incision: one dull cyst nicked from the oyster's mantle -- its thread of red gland no bigger than a seed of trout roe -- pressed inside the tendered flesh. Both hosts eased open with a knife (as if anything could be said to be eased with a knife): so that one pearl after another can be harvested, polished, added to others until a single rope is strung on silk. Linked by what you think is pain. Nothing could be so roughly handled and yet feel so little, your pity turned into part of this production: you with your small, four-chambered heart, shyness, hungers, envy: what could be so precious you'd cleave another to keep it close? Imagine the weeks it takes to wind nacre over the red seed placed at the other heart's mantle. The mussel become what no one wants to: vessel, caisson, wounded into making us the thing we want to call beautiful. |