Conductors
Danika Stegeman Lemay
I’ll probably never see Halley’s Comet unless I saw it in 1986
and forgot. I follow a streak of fire to the constellations, planets,
and other features of the heavens. Stars shine by their own light
as they consume themselves. Every day I eat myself while I also
eat the things around me. A star’s interior burns at millions
of degrees. Releasing matter as energy requires constant
transformation.
Native copper excavates as a matrix. An excellent conductor,
copper must be hammered to make it shine. Copper bends easily
into sacred geometries and reminds me I live on occupied land.
Copper crystals are rare but possible. The land’s surface and contents
ought to belong to no one. But we’re nothing if we’re not metal
collectors.
Listening to Conan O’Brien’s podcast Conan O’Brien Needs
A Friend, during a quiz segment titled “Big Dick History,”
I learn that Wilt Chamberlain’s preferred nickname was
the Big Dipper. Face north on any clear night. The Big Dipper’s
outer stars point to Polaris. We don’t talk about Wilt Chamberlain
without talking about his big dick history or his basketball statistics.
On March 2nd, 1962, Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 points in
a single game. The middle star in the Big Dipper’s handle is a
double star. The companion star is faint. It should matter if some
nights Wilt Chamberlain didn’t sleep. Polaris is a cepheid star,
meaning its magnitude changes, meaning sometimes it shines
dimly.
“What’s this?” my daughter asks. I say “fluorite.” She says
“I see fluorite! Do you see fluorite, Mommy?” Fluorite is said
to have healing properties: it absorbs negative energy, cleanses
the aura, and aids in learning. I must teach my 2-year-old the
names of things. I must teach her the anatomical names of her
own body parts, Jane, my early childhood instructor tells me,
to help protect her from sexual predators. At the time of this
writing, 1 in 5 girls will be sexually abused before their 18th
birthday. I must teach her to protect herself and also teach her
how not to be afraid. Gemstones must be cut on a diamond
wheel.
Cygnus, or, the swan, is a constellation of summer. It’s
cross marks where the Milky Way splits into parallel streams.
Orion is a constellation of winter. We can’t gather inside
because a virus killed my mom and intends to further thin
our admittedly pestilent numbers. We can’t gather outside
because skin freezes at -11℉. Orion is a consolation of
winter.
My brother likes to begin a sentence with the word “look,”
particularly when he drinks wine. Look, most transparent gems
are oxides but some are silica. Look, my birthstone is a garnet,
which is silica roughly the color of pinot noir. Look, a sommelier
once told me I had a sophisticated palate because I preferred red wines,
while my friend--who wasn’t really my friend but more like Regina George
if Regina George was a brunette with a serious drinking problem
she ignored--preferred white wines. Look, the rock that makes garnet
can also be green, and then it’s called demantoid, which sounds rather
sinister. Look, a ruby and a sapphire are identical besides
their colors. Look, if I can survive the cruelty of other children as a
food stamped, nearsighted, bucktoothed, overweight girl, I can survive
a group of adult women who lid their eyes and jut their hips to turn
away from me. Look, these are some aluminum minerals: Kyanite crystallizes
long and blade-like. Corundum marbles metamorphosed limestone.
I read corundum as conundrum. Look, I’m not sure where to set this
pain down, so I’ll just leave it right here. Kaolin is essential in ceramics
and found impure as clay. Look, my eyelids are covered in brille like yours,
like a reptile’s. Cryolite has a greasy luster. Its splinters fuse in candle
flame.
When two stars are in line, their spectra coincide. I want to be your spectral
double.
Synthetic diamonds were once the stuff of
dreams.
Our galaxy is swirling like a maelstrom. A synonym for maelstrom
is vortex. A synonym for vortex is whirlpool. A synonym for whirlpool
is suckhole. This identification guide illustrates physical and chemical
properties, origins and structures, and how to collect them in your
seams. It’s designed for anyone who enjoys diagrams and easy-to-read
language. The shifting, diffuse glow of an aurora is difficult
to describe. I stand at the bend of a frozen river while snow particles
catch and reflect the aurora as it undulates. An aurora is essentially an
electrical phenomenon, energy caught in a vacuum. That high, the sky
empties.
Danika Stegeman LeMay’s debut collection of poems, Pilot, is available now from Spork Press. She lives in Minneapolis with her husband and daughter. Her work has appeared in 32 Poems, Cimarron Review, CutBank Literary Journal, Denver Quarterly, Forklift, OH, Sporklet, and Word for/ Word, among other places. Her website is danikastegemanlemay.com.