Hearts of Palm, Canned
…her entire life searching for the elusive sea unicorn or narwhal, the radio ribbons into my sleep: a series about a marine biologist. She is explaining their mating habits when the radio clicks off. By the time I get up and turn it back on they are talking about foreclosure rates, entire cities empty. I look up narwhal on the Internet, a white creature with a wide grin and spiraled tooth. The next morning, the nets bounce, she struggles into her survival suit. What do narwhals sound like? Like seals or dolphins? Or do they glide silently, communicated with smells and signs? The scientist sounds young. She laughs a lot. She laughs about the nets and about not catching anything. She laughs when the reporter asks if she’s read Moby-Dick. The radio clicks off before she answers. When I turn it back on, houses, bereft of their owners weep vinyl siding and fling shingles to the ground. At work, I think of the arctic and the woman struggling into her suit because she hears the narwhal’s cry. Or is it the iceberg starting to crack? I drag numbers from a spreadsheet into another spreadsheet. After work, I squint at my list in the tundra of the grocery store. Hearts of Palm. I can’t remember writing that or what hearts of palm are. At home I open the can and find salty chunks of white flesh. The scientist wanted to be a dancer. One day she lifted into an arabesque, heard her ankle crunch like a walnut and knew. What did you know? The radio clicks off, and the houses sprout kudzu and cutflower. I click to a spreadsheet so my boss won’t catch me reading about narwhal songs. She uses a spear to stab a transmitter into a narwhal’s flank trying find out where they go in winter. Do they dive into the deep to hibernate or follow warmer currents south? I know where I go in winter: I go to work. I go to the grocery store. I go home with my canned goods. I dive shallower and shallower no matter the season. I arrange the hearts of palm on a plate and she eats them with her hands, sucks brine off her fingers. She laughs about Moby-Dick and the crush of her tiny bones. Why don’t you just ask them? But the chair doesn’t reply. I go to bed early to pass the time before the next broadcast. The transmitter slips from the wound. It relays the current, which sounds like a lung. I listen to pebbles grinding, her laughing and sharpening her spear. I enter narwhal gestation periods into a spreadsheet. On Saturday, the radio is hysterical. I listen to markets shatter like china, but the scientist doesn’t come on. On Sunday, the radio weeps for an assassinated world leader and rides the bus to see how commuters are dealing with the recession. On Monday it’s Korean little league and executive suicides. On Thursday, I am out of sick days and the radio hobbles through the wreckage of an exploded marketplace. I fill my trunk with canned hearts, head north.
…her entire life searching for the elusive sea unicorn or narwhal, the radio ribbons into my sleep: a series about a marine biologist. She is explaining their mating habits when the radio clicks off. By the time I get up and turn it back on they are talking about foreclosure rates, entire cities empty. I look up narwhal on the Internet, a white creature with a wide grin and spiraled tooth. The next morning, the nets bounce, she struggles into her survival suit. What do narwhals sound like? Like seals or dolphins? Or do they glide silently, communicated with smells and signs? The scientist sounds young. She laughs a lot. She laughs about the nets and about not catching anything. She laughs when the reporter asks if she’s read Moby-Dick. The radio clicks off before she answers. When I turn it back on, houses, bereft of their owners weep vinyl siding and fling shingles to the ground. At work, I think of the arctic and the woman struggling into her suit because she hears the narwhal’s cry. Or is it the iceberg starting to crack? I drag numbers from a spreadsheet into another spreadsheet. After work, I squint at my list in the tundra of the grocery store. Hearts of Palm. I can’t remember writing that or what hearts of palm are. At home I open the can and find salty chunks of white flesh. The scientist wanted to be a dancer. One day she lifted into an arabesque, heard her ankle crunch like a walnut and knew. What did you know? The radio clicks off, and the houses sprout kudzu and cutflower. I click to a spreadsheet so my boss won’t catch me reading about narwhal songs. She uses a spear to stab a transmitter into a narwhal’s flank trying find out where they go in winter. Do they dive into the deep to hibernate or follow warmer currents south? I know where I go in winter: I go to work. I go to the grocery store. I go home with my canned goods. I dive shallower and shallower no matter the season. I arrange the hearts of palm on a plate and she eats them with her hands, sucks brine off her fingers. She laughs about Moby-Dick and the crush of her tiny bones. Why don’t you just ask them? But the chair doesn’t reply. I go to bed early to pass the time before the next broadcast. The transmitter slips from the wound. It relays the current, which sounds like a lung. I listen to pebbles grinding, her laughing and sharpening her spear. I enter narwhal gestation periods into a spreadsheet. On Saturday, the radio is hysterical. I listen to markets shatter like china, but the scientist doesn’t come on. On Sunday, the radio weeps for an assassinated world leader and rides the bus to see how commuters are dealing with the recession. On Monday it’s Korean little league and executive suicides. On Thursday, I am out of sick days and the radio hobbles through the wreckage of an exploded marketplace. I fill my trunk with canned hearts, head north.
