As if it Was Always There / Fungi Earthworm as Arthropod Fish

Two poems by Ion Corcos

As if it Was Always There

We shell pumpkin seeds on the balcony,

eat some husks that cannot be split easily.

The day falls into memory, a glass of soda,

salt air. The sea disappears into itself.

We hold onto nothing, not even

the day’s warm breeze, white gulls returning

to the flat tide, the sun that fades slowly.

We leave the dropped shells to morning,

when the sea reappears – as if it was always there –

and the silence gently retreats.

Fungi Earthworm as Arthropod Fish

A mushroom head swings through empty sea,

a slug, a squid, an arthropod fish, fungi stalk

hooked in its open mouth, back segmented,

trilobite appendage, an armoured earthworm.

Its eyes see only shadows, shells interred

in the sandy bottom of a bay, flick of silver tail

at the periphery. If it could speak it might utter,

I am not centipede or snail, nor hardy shrub.

Animal and earthen root, it swims on, sea-

creature, salt-skinned, amid caverns, rock ledges,

fields of swaying kelp, rivered tidal flats,

onto earth; part ground-dweller, compound eyes,

pseudo caterpillar. This layering of creature

furtive, ill-omened, determined, the endgame

of a house of cards; even the sea does not force,

nor the rupture of land, its making, unmaking.