Young Girls, and: Upon Losing Another Earring, and: Conduction

129 three poems by Young Girls julie larios Some are a cure for snakebite. Some lean away from the disk as their rays mature. Some have tough roots and love hardpan, others spread alongside river bottoms, drift west through the corn belt. Some list in shade, some can stop a wound’s bleeding, some are self-made for mud. Many drive men mad if ingested. Connoisseurs think of habitat, age, culinary stages. Forage the green shoots, scrape the cob’s dried pollen off. 130 ecotone It’s a long story with lots of losing— one earring, two earrings, ten, then my hearing, then the fine hair of my right ear’s interior, then my balance and my bearing. Believe me, what’s happening is the opposite of win-win but why start whining about the small things? Soon the lobes will go, and the cartilage after, as well as what’s larger, what’s between one ear and the other, then the neck and everything below, shoulders to toes—breasts, elbows, knees— God knows there are no safe zones, all of it will go missing soon enough, just toughen up, buy another pair and get on with it. Upon Losing Another Earring 131 julie larios Conduction Our brains— despite modern medical investigation re: synapses, folds, left and right hemispheres, gendered predilections, sparks and cold facts, digits and firm predictions— are not reasonable. They’re crimped and spliced to conduct our days along their coppered circuits until they reach the night again, that’s all, and though we think it’s logical to open our eyes each morning, butter the toast, lift a spoon, our brains— despite all the elemental charts, the skeletal diagrams, the building blueprints and -ologies of a priestly kind— are not wired to survive our hearts. ...