Untitled - Centre for Comparative Literature - University of Toronto

90 transverse
prussian blue: a response to peter balakian’s “the oriental rug”
marc foley
I
There is a boy napping
on a drawing on the fl oor,
holding in his fi st a clutch
of smouldering fl ies.
His legs dangle over
the one-eighth of an inch
rim of dried Crayola,
and my left thumb catches
falling drop of skin.
Crumbling oatmeal in a pool
near his face – dream resin;
he’s fl oating on vegetables spilling
colour outside the lines
and bits of skin fall from
my thumb into his mouth
pushing out oats that tumble
and arrange themselves,
remembering, on
the drawing of a page.
Are we somewhere near Troy?
(war doesn’t live there anymore)
Just sheep and cypress
in swelling pools of green
II
not found in New Jersey
or even Crayola.
I remove my eye and roll it
over to his tightened fi ngers
and the smouldering fl ies
reach out their legs and
try my scent
with wings of grass.
He opens his hand
and the fl ies alight;
they drop eggs into
my trailing optic nerve
still spitting dendrites
and synaptic cleft –
birthed in remembrance,
warmed by bursts of spark
they swell, put forth
a fl oor-coloured lead.
It cuts the outline
of a boy
in a fl urry of splintered wax
he sleeps with fl ies,
hand curled upon a reddened eye
watching the fl oor fall through.