It was a bright fragrant day when we came across a shallow wide
pond in the woods. Old conifers lilting their low thick branches over its flat surface.
Weird things of bone, things broken and bent back upon themselves, rested
in the flats of the pond. The huge ribcage of a whale, its base submerged.
Like artifacts of some Melvillian nightmare. Shining bright in the sun.
My sister, my dog, and I observed these objects from the soft shore.
I took photos. Movement disturbed the still shallows. A hammerhead shark cruised
in the flats, poorly invisible, its translucent rubber-flesh revealing its bones underneath.
My dog waded into the flats, and the shark cracked onto her front leg. Yikes! I sprinted in,
splashing through in big steps, my sister screaming, the shark and dog thrashing.
When I got to my dog she had shaken free, and the shark had taken her front leg to her elbow.
It cruised off like the glitching little snake it was. I picked up my dog and held her
against my chest, her wet fur and blood staining my t shirt. I felt resigned
to this new future. Three-legged dog. Huh.
The photos I took of this place showed nothing. Blurred grey screens.
As if this reality consisted of a medium that cameras could not capture.
A different sort of light. Which faded away like bits of ash on a burning log,
shaking, tremoring, before peeling off, drifting up.
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