We are a public forum committed to collective reasoning and the imagination of a more just world. Join today to help us keep the discussion of ideas free and open to everyone, and enjoy member benefits like our quarterly books.
We are a public forum committed to collective reasoning and the imagination of a more just world. Join today to help us keep the discussion of ideas free and open to everyone, and enjoy member benefits like our quarterly books.
The way to see the invisible salmon is to cook it at once,
on lowered heat, in a cast-iron pan glossy with the fat
of earlier salmon that cannot be seen. When the salmon is ready
it is cerise. This is supper, and also supposition—
no-one has caught the invisible salmon but the invisible
bear, nine hundred pounds of desire, who hibernates
in the double bed. The bear is not an idea. Since when
was desire a good idea? The bear is a Kodiak instance, stolen
from the time stream that slips around the airfoil
of the present, an aerodynamic hump in the double bed, scion
of a long-crested line of airborne bears, who fishes
and whoops asleep, invisible paw dangling over a colander
full of water, rife with coho, sockeye, Chinook, chum,
swirling and transparent as the night is at night time.
Originally from South Africa, Henk Rossouw's book-length poem Xamissa—out from Fordham University Press in Fall 2018—won the Poets Out Loud Editor's Prize. Best American Experimental Writing 2018 (Wesleyan University Press) features an excerpt. Currently, he is a visiting assistant professor in the University of Houston's Honors College.
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