COVER

 Life’s Temples

1.

Biology is the science that deals with the form and behavior of living beings – houses and their occupants. Life dwells in fluidity. That much we know. 

The first and only holy substance involves building temples where life resides. Think of a lion and her cub. 

No one knows when humankind’s climax is. I proffer we will know when we forget superiority. 

We are all anatomically similar to our parents. There is no denying when the skin of an animal is broken, blood will ooze out. 

After ten minutes in water, will the potato still have the same feel to your touch as it did when you put it in?

Do fluids rise when we sleep?

Measure of prevention for all plagues: Kill your rats. 

To illustrate, let us return to the case of lockjaw spreading in world war trench operations; how it arrived in an enormous number; the antitoxin prepared and supplied.

(a) Write down what you observe.

(b) Explain what happened.

(c) Tell why it happened. 

2.   

The Egyptians believed in a future, in the throne of Osiris, in all parts assembling into a perfect whole, and he is making tea. No one would make tea for this man of their own volition. No one would touch his sharp beak; beautiful golden eagle that he is, he is prone to bite. 

The wife is hugging the baby. The wife is all teeth and lips. This means she does not want to share baby

She settles onto the couch, props her feet onto the coffee table, bits of mud slough off the soles. This is the conflict. Her large shoes on the coffee table. 

She does not like to touch legs when they sleep. This means the wife does not want to share baby. 

“The soul is the body, heaven and earth. Do not let your soul shut you in. Look upon your shadow and see the great god that you are,” said the Ancient Egyptians in The Book of the Dead where little eagles meant, “thou art pure among the bones and flesh.”

The wife wants to carry off the hearts of the gods and devour every artery. The wife wants to clog her windpipes with wisdom. She does not share this with anyone. The wife cooks asparagus while baby sees her own pinky toe for the first time. 

3. 

(a) Be more like a human. Test all blood relationships and trace back to a common ancestor. Locate the parents. In fact, according to these tests, you will find that you are the only known living relative to the monkey and vice versa.

(b) Understand that not all ancient gravel pits will be hiding portions of the skull, parts of the lower jaw, nasal bones, and / or teeth. Sometimes the bones belong to someone else. Someone who got their first. Like the Dawn Man who lives in a trailer in the desert and drinks SunKist. His wife is always on the phone. He has dreams. 

(c) “Why can’t you be a gentleman?” His wife wants to know. They did not spring from a common limb. He sprung backwards, and she sprung forwards. 

(d) He does not believe in the creation hypothesis because it has always been supported by a simple statement, “In the beginning, God…”

4. 

Copernicus said something –

“I do not ask the pardon accorded to Paul. I do not hope for the grace given to Peter. I beg only for the favor which you have granted to the thief on the cross.”

“Who was the thief,” she wonders. She looks up, and the stars pass on. The sun-lava suspended in space, a yellow orb. She imagines that when the earth was born it was the size of a small knot; small in contrast to the different solar worlds. 

She eats her peanut butter and jelly. She is six. Her father calls her Allison. She prefers Alice. This annoys her greatly, and she confides in her friends. 

5.

All day she coughs a lung up in the garden. Her little boy wants to see the bats. “Show me the bats.”

She sits there among the tomatoes with her organ hanging over the curve of her lips. She is not a type of edible fruit. When crushed she has a distinct smell. Her little boy has seen this when she slumps over the kitchen sink and spits. 

Do not repot adult plants every year unless it is necessary.

She has never found the need. The fresh soil is gone. 

The little boy thinks otherwise. He nudges ants with his toes in the direction of his choosing.

She has seen one or two exotic men walking down the street.

Satin, dark velvety crimson.

Fresno, silvery-pink, deepening toward petal margins with red centers. 

Hardy, long-lived men. 

Her little boy raises onions from the dirt like a necromancer. He holds the little, white heads.

She sways her lung and is not sympathetic to her head, face or neck. She can feel the arrangement of her teeth changing form. 

The dental furrow.

The lower central incisors.

Her grinding face in the garden.

6. 

He has been told that his work is dramatic and dusty. That he doesn’t do eyes well. That all of his animals look either afraid or murderous. 

Once he put the teeth of a cheetah through the eyes of a monkey. He called it, “Skilled Hunting Techniques” and tried to donate it to the library. He thought it’d look nice in one of their reading rooms. He liked imagining the women’s book club admiring it. They’d understand. They’re artistic. Sally is definitely artistic. 

Sally loves blackberries and wears long skirts. Once John had her over and touched her shoulder.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Just taxidermy stuff,” John answered, “I’ve loved it ever since I was a kid.”

“No, not that,” she said. 

7. 

The woman spends most afternoons watching rats open little doors for one another. She is discovering empathy. Her tongue in her mouth feels like a warm, sleepy animal as she watches a rat refuse to open a door. This is the obstinate rat. 

The rat that understands something the other rats do not.

That most people don’t want to share a soft pretzel. They want their own soft pretzel. 

That rats are the same. 

The woman thinks herself a great disappointment in her field. She thinks she is very unpleasant. She once said the body of an earthworm is really just an open tube, so we shouldn’t feel guilty when we fish. She said this around polite people who only eat plants so now she has a horrible feeling associated with being an idiot. 

She whispers to the obstinate rat, “you and I are the same little rat.” She closes all the little doors so all the little rats are isolated in separate rooms. She finds something to eat.