The Cerebral Catalyst

I had asked a little maid at the
entrance to a Heritage Farm tour,
"what was behind the burnt stall doors
near the water fountain,"
and she told me
it was a big problem.

—Headache, she says,

They were selling commemorative plates
in the gift shop for
$200 a piece, and I asked her
wasn't that a little steep—
She told me no, because the plates were
carefully handmade by the Amish, and
before they were shipped,
they had been blessed by a holy man and a
virgin.

So I went back to the maid, to confirm this,
and she said they pick them up at the Safeway,
outside Exit 7 on the
104.

I stare at this slick aluminium door
in the barn hallway—

—"Oh, that's just the milking room," she says to me.
I crack it open to see
girls
with shells,
strewn about on the floor,
sat across a massive
silex slab,
where they were reclining in
makeshift chairs,
reading Time/Life and National Geographic
with their legs crossed.

I regressed back out the door,
looking at the maid—

—"Well," she said.
"If we told everyone there were
mermaids here,
we'd be swamped,—
And
That's not how we do things here at the Heritage Farm."

This bottling room was connected
next to the room with the burnt stall doors.
which was also
closed and locked,
I've
had enough.

I smash open the stall doors to this
big mess of
broken porcelain mountain.

—Piles of smashed plates,
falling out of two aluminium chutes
on
either axis, then
into the middle
hump.

I asked her why the Christ they
threw out all the plates
but she slums out.

"Oh, They have to throw out all the plates,
because that fish-smelling milk
has touched them."

______________________________________
Chris Baribeau is a 20-year-old professional greaser, who will keep on writing poetry until he has enough to claim it in a book. He was recently published in the SaucyVox with the short fiction "Gynaecologist Vs. Dentist", and has some forthcoming work in Zygote in My Coffee. Currently, he's working on a revenge novel about runaway wives, mermaid breast milk, half-pregnancies, and the would-be draft. He lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

posted 12.26.05.

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