Long jetty, long shell-racked jetty, cracked warped planks. Beautiful fish, beautiful sea-bass poached with an August tomato, on an ironstone plate. A snake's slough, a snake's spinal cord, a dry-rot stump. A twill tape measure, an audiotape cassette unspooled and puckered, shining. Agate prayer beads, kazoos, whistles, rattles. A bike-chain and a bungy cord. A moebius strip and a broccoli elastic. Split vanilla pod inset with paltry-looking flat oily brown seeds. Egg-and-dart molding of vitreous fake sandstone. Contrails, mares' tails, mackerel sky.
From Quaker Guns by Caroline Knox. Copyright © 2008 by Caroline Knox. Used by permission of Wave Books.