"Blink Back" By Mary McDonald
There are layers here, like an onion’s
skins of meaning. If I cut through these layers, will I cry? Is it my dreamscape or yours that you are showing so blazenly, brazenly here? But hidden of course, curtained by the layers of meaning we could make, but don’t in our lives if it takes more than 140 characters, or a blink, or 100 seconds to process, dive in, think through, Like. I can keep busy if I want not to see into my own onion skin, make no cuts. Meaning. Will I cry if I cut through yours? Will you? It looks like the classic ancient Japanese painting of the waves in the middle, and here, fingers pointing -- isn’t that rude? and stalactites curving underneath, along the cave roof drips and mountains and flowing and those koi that pushed up, onto the surface of the pond when I stepped onto the bridge that morning, those fat, gold koi that jostled and thrashed on top of each other, in anticipation of the food I did not drop and fire and moon and leaves I see now too, along the left. And those other koi, that morning I began to see the choices I … Do I stitch together my meanings or make cuts into/through? Which would be more constructive? Instructive? (Efficient?) I’ll lie along this curved sand floor reminded of the rounded rocks in Georgian Bay when I tried, I wanted… See. These are my layered skins. I am drawn to these lines and images. I am drawn into these lines and images. I am drawn on these lines and This is how the raw onion skin splits stings eyes blink koi and moon and fire and net falling away into the cavern below inner lining, layers stalactites curving mountains, and waterfall waves, and Mary McDonald is a writer who has settled in the London community, after living in West Africa, Indonesia, and Toronto. Mary is a graduate student of the Master’s of Educational Technology program of UBC. She has been previously published in The New Quarterly and her play, “13 inches of closet space” will be given a public reading in April.
|