1 poem
by Bronwen Brenner
Bronwen Brenner is a poet and writer from New York City. Her work appears in Maudlin House, Cosmonauts Avenue, Teen Vogue, The Journal of Art Criticism, and elsewhere. Her work has been recognized by The Poetry Society and Princeton University. She studies at Sarah Lawrence College.
I love my himalayan pink salt lamp
at 7-Eleven a woman in a white smock
and vintage earrings buys two bottles of coconut electrolit
and haribo smurfs
I eat like this too, gelatin excess
hydrating all at once with soluble salts
late in the day
after forgetting
there are nanoplastics in my cell walls
the way birds weave scraps of tinsel into their nests
my mother worked at style dot com while she was pregnant with me
her coworker wore a canary diamond ring
nobody used to want yellow diamonds so the companies called them canary
like canary in a coal mine
like the way people mine diamonds
blood diamonds
the coworker passive aggressively
left a catalogue of designer maternity clothes on her desk
as if to say do better
the coworker was also pregnant
she was married to a dupont chemical heir
twenty years later
in an existentialism lecture
I meet a girl who tells me she wants to work in fashion marketing
she was the dupont chemical fetus
the dupont fetus inside the coworker’s body
dupont is inside all of our bodies
in chemical form
as C8
C8
C8
C8
do you see it?
how it’s like a creepy smiley face?
salt from the
mine
diamond from the
mine
those ads for divorce lawyers
when diamonds aren’t forever
a flock of canaries
(•ө•) (•ө•)
(•ө•)
a cute little sacrifice
“is a thing with feathers,” etc.
but where the pink salt is mined in pakistan—
not the himalayas
that’s just marketing
like canary diamonds—
there was once a lagoon where the salt is mined
with its horror movie evocation of what lurks beneath
the miners spend all day under ground
with a fine layer of salt dusting their hair
their eyelashes their skin their lungs
along with diesel exhaust and nitrous oxide
but the trucks are handpainted every such color
and adorned with tassels and bells
at least the ones they show in the videos
and the machines that cut
the pink salt spray water
to suppress dust clouds
and blades that cut diamonds
have diamonds sintered to the metal
diamond suicide
diamond cannibalism
diamond sacrifice
something about how only a diamond can break itself
which is also true of the worst of us
but flaws in diamonds are called inclusions
which I like because it’s just like
the flaw is equally included in the essence of the thing
to think you can pick and choose desirable qualities is a fantasy
they say himalayan pink salt lamps
interact with the moisture in the air
drawing in water molecules
evaporating them upon contact with the warmth
radiating from the surface of the salt as the bulb transfers its heat
which produces negative ions
negative ions of waterfalls and thunder storms
they produce that feeling
you know what I’m talking about
of being bright and clear
like a baby animal blinking open its eyes
or at least that’s what is said of
negative ions
atoms with an extra electron
electrolit
electrolytes
are minerals that conduct electricity
when dissolved in water
good for electrical neutrality in cells
which have nanoplastics in their walls
underground, in the dark mines,
there is dynamite
and there are explosions
and above ground
there are land mines
and there are explosions
and all these ancient formations
born of pressure water lava tectonic movements
are un-
earthed
I feel unearthed all the time
like when I remember
the C8 in my body
and the nanoplastics in my cell walls
to earth
to earth can be undone
I am trying to earth myself
let’s earth ourselves
I want you to earth me
h h h h h h
ee e e e ee aa aa rr tttt hhhhhhhhhhhhh
hearth
that’s where the warmth comes from
the water is evaporating
a force field of invisible pearls
can you feel it?