Mary McDonald "Blink Back"

"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.