Thermometer Cracking
Dani Narins
For years now
I have been dreaming about becoming sick with mercury Poisoning
An affliction of excess,
Old fashioned
A wives tale
An aunt, fragile in department store sweater sets eating salmon all alone for every meal
Gorging myself on overpriced delivery tuna sashimi, lips made slick with fatty fishy oil
Swordfish steak, a wedding favorite, grey and colorless. We toast to the beautiful bride.
Fish that eat other fish absorb their mercury levels, the survival of the biggest. Too much lake perch can cause your heart to fail.
My mother has promised to give me her Chilean sea bass recipe. She doesn’t cook much, but this she knows how to make.
My elemental demise, I’ll say calmly
with a curled smile that makes your silver blood run cold
dark circles from difficulty sleeping
Shaking hands and nervousness
You can’t see a bruised kidney, but I assure you, it is, it’s true
Caviar and shrimp cocktails are no fun, not with
Thin wrists that can barely lift a mother of pearl fork
Hapless and harried
It does seem, that
Too much is never enough
Dani Narins grew up in Connecticut and currently lives in Brooklyn. She majored in creative writing in school and should have gone to class more.