Erica Bernheim: Marrow-Craving Head-Huntress

The Scent of Fear

It is not unlike the lye, and what you need to know

is nothing to brag about: the vestigial nipple of

the nutria, a handbag filled with other handbags,

a buzzard in a long, blonde wig, the idea that you

could--if you wanted to--control the weather.

It is criminal to celebrate fragility. The bees want

your pollen; the chickens want your plants; bugs

will populate your made-up dreams about other

poets and farms. Tell me what city I'm in, and I'll

tell you my name. The rabbits sense the smells

of stale human bodies, of legs stacked larva-esque

in the sprawl of an underground garden. The weather

begins to remind you of movies you haven't seen,

of books you will never read, and of the sounds

of the sounds of trees. There is no place in which

you don’t want traffic to move forward. There

are universal misdeeds. There are times when

resurfacing is the expectation.

The Shrunken Head

It’s been nearly fifty years and no one remembers

the country he was filming in. Headhunting

occurred in many regions of the world. Is it

accidental that he couldn’t tell you to stop making

sentences or plans? When you stumble upon

the head of your beloved on Match.com, the proper

response is:

a.     Develop an attraction to striped shirts.

b.     Never have the intention of doing the right thing.

c.     Grow in popularity.

d.     Move to a suburb of Milwaukee and cultivate a suntan.

e.     Bring your best feelings towards the cooler.

           

People, look too helpless and you will cover

yourselves with pastry, fashions, burning down,

and awkward conversations.

This is the age of being touched:

gently. Don’t touch.

Death Swim

It wasn’t about the war. It wasn’t about

the lake. It was about fire and the lakes of oil,

shot from a helicopter. Those are not lakes.

These are full of oil, the oil is literally

boiling, and the process of watching

makes you wonder how long you should

make the same mistakes without thinking

about them. I say, there must be a better

way than this to evolve. There

should be a way around impossible love,

a legitimate reason women love horses first,

then men. There must be a way for bone

marrow to settle around the heart and heal

Only sometimes do situations not turn out

as you might have expected. Think how you

might have overused me, merrily screwed me

over the promises of darkness. If I were

a naked vulture, things would be the same.

My experiments will not have gone

unnoticed. A man outside will invent

something for this. This is me walking

away. This is me as seen from behind.

It is a fact that we will grow old before

learning to settle our deeds near fire.

It is a fact that civilians do not need

search warrants to enter each other’s homes.

Erica Bernheim holds degrees from Miami University, The University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and the University of Illinois at Chicago. She is currently Associate Professor of English at Florida Southern College, where she directs the creative writing program. Her first full-length collection, The Mimic Sea, was published by 42 Miles Press (Indiana University South Bend) in 2012. She is also the author of a chapbook, Between the Room and the City (H_NGM_N B__KS, 2006) and her work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in The Laurel Review, Georgetown Review, Saw Palm, and The Iowa Review.