Sacrafect Bioluminescence

Because I didn’t want to go, I made my partner cry. I feel poorly today, both physically and now because I made him cry.

I have a predisposition for alienation — and a tendency to make more of sirens than I should. I never just picture a heart attack, car accident victim, or appendicitis; no, I picture terrorist bombings, the start of uncontrolled pandemics, anthrax poisonings, the first wave of nuclear fallout victims, and such.

And such is the way of my addled mind. I am a sick woman. I don’t think anyone would disagree — except the Sacrafect of Mantia who believes that sunfish can tell time better than clocks.

The Sacrafect has been trying to inject bioluminescence into sunfish so he’d be able to tell time at night.

He’s failed miserably.

This is Fall, at 1:54 p.m., on 10/19/2020. Jamaica Plain, MA. (19/31)

“A stranger writes to request my thoughts
on suffering. Barbed wire pulled out of the mouth, as if demanding that I kneel to the trap of coiled spikes used in warfare and fencing.”

— Ada Limón / “Give Me This”