By Beatriz Seelaender
I want to do that Walden shit
somewhere covered in ice sheets
I climbed every highest mountain and still
haven’t been able to reach mother superior’s solo’s note when she sings
Nature as a nice scene on my tv screen
Nature as Animal Planet plus popcorn for breakfast on a Sunday morning
Nature as halfmoon trails of dirt in my fingernails
and sweat that’s the salt of the earth on my T-shirt
Never mind the mountains and cable-cars
Summer turns everything sour, evaporating warnings insidiously
It’s a greenery of secrecy for my overgrown subconscious
I keep getting lost and losing my stuff
I keep getting thorns on my black Birkenstocks
Sweating through the subliminal potential of the landscape
Sunlight stays on into the night, shades are drawn
My vampiric aversion to sunlit ambiance keeps me gothic
I’ll forever be on the opposite migrating path
And follow the cold draft into the city
Nearly temperate in altitude, cold comforts in contradictory climates
Oh the São Paulo experience, four seasons a day
My waist in a cardigan
There, nature is kept inside islands
There, no one cares what it says on your passport
There, the dog is yours, she knows you better than anyone
Grass is her nemesis, she will not step on it
She would hate it here in the Alps and its dirt and its sporty inhabitants
They like her are supposed to be colder, not kinder
This dreamland is only real in winter
The rest of the year, I guess I’ll be southbound
Beatriz Seelaender is a Brazilian author from São Paulo. Her prose can be found in Cagibi, Guesthouse, and many others. Seelaender’s poetry has appeared in Door is A Jar Mag, Pangyrus, and others. Her novella “All According to Norm” (Black Spring Press), winner of the Bottom Drawer Prize, will be published in 2024.