16 April 2007 | Vol. 7, No. 1
Fish-Holes
Phillip is fascinated by interfaces.
Skin is his favorite organ.
Here I, object, am.
But there becomes a point in space,
he sighs, where I stop and all that is not me
begins. What physics, what magic
happens here, at the seam?
He imagines
an unimaginably thin latticework
of binding detonations
where the rules break
each other.
If I am distinct, if I am other
to a fish or stone but touch a stone
and we do not become one for the touch,
then each interface is a function of sunder,
and taction a dream.
Phil clenches his fist. Can objects
ever touch? The math suggests not.
What, then, comprises contact
in this lonely equation
of a world? A fish
carves out fish-holes
in the river. Water can't go
where a fish is. When it swims,
water fills right in where the fish was.
Is the filling-in so immediate
the interface remains seamless? And
when Phil skins his knee, has the world
made a hole in him to occupy with itself?
About the author:
A former All-Ivy football player, Mitchell Metz is now a poet and stay-at-home dad with four young children. In his free time, he plays hockey under the delusion it will somehow make him immortal. Most recently, his work has appeared in Redivider, Hiram Poetry Review, Roanoke Review, Poet Lore, South Carolina Review, and Fugue. He was nominated for a Pushcart twice in 2006.
For further reading:
Browse the contents of 42opus Vol. 7, No. 1, where "Fish-Holes" ran on April 16, 2007. List other work with these same labels: poetry.
