invasive species
Poem - by Bethany F. Brengan
i want a movie
where the aliens skip new york
london san francisco land
instead in the heart
of the amazon brave little explorer
scientists with photographic fingertips
who breathe in the secret signals
of trees and immediately understand
their stories who cannot be harmed
running their sensitive
hands over iridescent beetles
poisonous dart frogs piranhas
amused at attempts to bite or sting
their only threats are separation
and the dark
they climb above the canopy
sucking in great gasps of sunlight
the main conflict will be whether
by staying they contaminate the system
they've come to love one
wants to leave and one doesn't
i don't care how the movie
resolves so long as it is
beautiful and at the end
we the audience
realize that we haven't seen a single
human but we didn't notice
because we had been busy relearning
the shadowy bits of our back garden
how a spray of pollen across
an anaconda's abdomen
makes a strange and awefull galaxy
Bethany F. Brengan
invasive species, poem, Issue 56/57, Fall/Winter 2021
Bethany F. Brengan is a freelance writer and editor who splits her time between the Olympic Peninsula and the internet. Her poetry has appeared in Tiny Spoon, Claw & Blossom, The Gordon Square Review, The 2015 Poet’s Market, and CV2: The Canadian Journal of Poetry and Critical Writing. She can be found at www.brenganedits.com and https://medium.com/essays-no-one-asked-for.
Get to know Bethany...
When did you start writing?
I used to draw pictures and then make my mom write the words for me so that I could staple the pages together into "books." I think one story was about sea animals escaping sharks? (I had been given a set of underwater-themed rubber stamps for my birthday.)
When and what and where did you first get published?
Paducah Community College no longer exists, but I still have my copy of PCC's The Open Door, which gave freshman-Bethany her first poetry publication.
Why do you write?
Because I never grew out of the make-believe stage.
Why do you write Science Fiction and/or Fantasy?
It's not purposeful. But I read and watch a lot of fantasy, science fiction, and speculative fiction. And it keeps sneaking into my own work. You get to ask old questions about morality and humanity in new ways when you can unmoor your stories from pure reality.
Who is your favorite author?
It depends on the day you ask me, but right now, my favorite author is Mary Doria Russell. She always breaks my heart and then somehow makes me thank her for it.
If you could write your own epitaph, what would it say?
I hope it can say, "She was honest, and she was kind."
Do you blog?
I have a (possibly abandoned?) blog at http://readingwritingraptures.blogspot.com/, and a very alive but occasional blog at https://medium.com/essays-no-one-asked-for.