Breadcrumb #546

ALEXANDRA WATSON

She sees herself first. Ripples frame her face, like someone skipped a stone––but who? 
A skipping rock, thrown from nowhere. From a deepdown spring, objects pop up from the future: a polaroid, a shrine to Isis. She’s looking for what to pray to. 

Before humans, gods had no word for love. Aphrodite hadn’t wept. Venus was a vixen bathed in poppies. We gave you life, they said. We gave you fruiting trees. Wind, and day, and roots. What more is it you want? Someone combing her hair. Scratching her scalp. 

A face on which to squander her eye’s geometry. All you do is want, want, want. You want another you, You’ll have to make it. They were busy with volcanoes; they liked to watch the world erupt. To invent a love, she thought, you need material: first, water. 

She gathers her reflection in a bowl. Then, mineral: bouquets of daffodils she layers. The pressure makes carbon, chlorine, cobalt, copper, zinc. Bacteria and fungi are recruited. She digs for calcium all day. No one said how much trouble bones were. Sprinkles nickel for kicks.

Chromium, a bonus. She splints a pinky, twirls - this centrifugal production, a life-sized shape, the clarity of stars. Now, how melanin? How eyelash? How fingernail? Why not seed, why not wisp of dandelion? Even plants have cuticle, veins impregnated with wax.

You need a bit of miracle to make a love from scratch. 
She returns to the water, recruits night sky, scoops platinum to stitch her statue’s follicles. 
And warmth. She holds her creation, waits to see its face.

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