[Issue 2024.71]

‘Two Hybrids’, Rachel Rodman

Art © 2024 Fluffgar

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1.

When her parents die,
she converts
the pea-green boat
to
a pair of prosthetics—
wooden extensions of her own wings
(which are only half sized).

2.

When his parents die,
he is scarcely born:
something
between
a wriggling tadpole
and a blind mouse pup.
(“Abomination,” says his Great-Uncle Rat.)

1.

And into the air, she launches herself:
a battle cry—
part owl, part cat.
And beneath her, all the world:
the beach and the Bong-Trees
and the graves of everyone she has ever loved
become very, very
small.

2.

For years, he ruminates:
When his parents died,
it was all his fault.

On their wedding day,
the Big Snake had eaten them.

But they had married only
to mitigate the shame of making him.

(“Profane mixture,” says his Great-Aunt Hamster.)

1.

She is a magnificent flier.
She is, she is.
And yet.

‘Monster,” they call her
in the many lands into
which she descends.
“Unholy cross-breed.”

“Pollution”
“Corruption.”
“Unnatural beast.”

Perhaps.
But doesn’t she have claws?

2.

“I wish,” say his guardians,
“that you had never been born.”
He agrees.

After his metamorphosis,
he runs away
half hopping,
half scurrying

to not be born.
to not be born!

But first.

he returns to the waters
(to the Lake, where his parents—
too briefly—
had enjoyed
their wedding cake)
to extract
a blood price—

Big Snake.

1.

scratch their normal limbs
normal skin
normal eyes
normal

if they call her names.

scratch

2.

Sword. Pistol.
His father’s weapons are rusty.

But they are all he has.

With them, he wanders:
days, nights, months, and seasons—
through
water
mud
trees,
around the Lake.

That Lake.

Hunting.

1.

Bullies.

To fight them,
she uses only her claws.

The heirloom
she has carried from the island:
her parents’ exotic weapon,
she retains in its case,
hidden
and
close.

2.

in the mud:
slither marks,
pieces of shed skin—
snake tracks,
abnormally large.

And he knows, in his heart
(all three-and-a-half chambers)
what will happen soon.
He knows…

1.

Let them hate her.
Fear her.
Let their constables pursue her.

2.

Found him.

At the edge of the waters.
Looming.

Big Snake.

The pistol—he tries—does not fire.
No.
But the sword?

to avenge his parents
to vindicate himself—

Perhaps…

And in his heart
(all three-and-a-half chambers)
he retains the following lie:

That he is not afraid.

1.

Far below, a lake.

Time to rest.

As she descends,
she perceives the struggle:
a conventionally beautiful creature,
sinewy and smooth,
grappling with another:
an irregular being with eccentric appendages—
ears that are half-nubs;
paws that are half-webbed.

But which of them is the monster?

2.

Teeth.
Throat.
Darkness.

3.

From the secret scabbard at her hip,
she withdraws her family’s ancestral weapon.

Runcible spoon.

“Hoo”—her father’s cry,
“Meow”—her mother’s.

But hers?

Beneath her spoon, snake flesh opens;
as she slashes and stabs,
the monster disgorges the creature,
who can now reach down
into the
mud.

For his sword.

“Ribbit-Squeak!” he cries. “Screech-Yowl!” she answers.

And they stab together.

cold sticky blood and one last breath

Hiss.

3.

A question. “I will,” says he, and pledges his heart to her. All three-and-a-half chambers.

3.

Her parents had chosen an island.
But that had been too small.

With auxiliary folds
(torn from the skin of the Snake)
she amends her prosthetics—
enough to support
the weight of her husband.

Into the sky, she leaps.
And he does ride.

On her back,
he forages for them both,
capturing
star-bright moths
and fire-flecked flies
with a tongue that is half
as long as his father’s.

Inside her, they grow:
owlet-kitten-tadpole-mouse pups.
To be born alive—
or perhaps laid as eggs—
on their arrival.

Through the night they ascend,
toward the land of the
dish and the spoon,
where the leaping cow wooed the laughing dog—
a radically inclusive world
for storied loves and
unconventional
combinations.

Above them, it impends, ever larger.
To the moon, to the moon, to the moon.

© 2024 Rachel Rodman

[Issue 2024.71]

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