Memory of a Quaternary Mammal

by Nathaniel Julien Brame

Ramin Rezaei

I grew my hair long in the Pleistocene. The air was colder then, a halo around every chipped blade of grass.

In the paintings there were only animals, and in the firelight, mothwing shadows beat with booming rhythms.

I will never sleep again as I did under that glacier before its kindly weight slipped from me like a quilt off the foot of a bed.

When I awoke there was sleepdust heaped in moraines along my ribs. When I yawned, a great lake.

In that stretch of time I kept only my whiskers. Domestication: I wanted to be changed without having to talk about it.

Next, a ripcurrent inside a caterpillar. A tree with muttering leaves straddling the little storm.

These soft owl wings: you can’t even hear them until you’re already being carried, incredulous, into the bloodied electric night air.

Under all these owl wings of time, still I haven’t learned of the clutch. Hold your breath while you wait for me.

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Nathaniel Julien Brame is a queer poet from the Great Lakes and lately the Pacific Northwest. His work has appeared in Main Squeeze and Ouch! Magazine. Alongside poetry, his other preoccupations include cave paintings, choral music, and jumping spiders.