ROBBIE TELFER

PREGNANT PAUSE

Most aphids are born pregnant

the frilled shark gestates for

up to three and half years

most aphids are born pregnant

probably the embryonic aphids

inside the newborn aphids

are not also pregnant but

nothing surprises me anymore

the frilled shark can have two

to fifteen babies after almost

an olympiad, basically a high

school career, much of that time

spent in total darkness so the

kids aren’t missing anything

except the thrill of shredding

squids with their fucked up

teeth which is actually the most

alive a frilled shark can feel

I have read many strategies

for removing aphids from

garden plants though the

most effective has always been

to smoosh them with fingers

carnage stain hands

surely I’ve had the pulpy

aphid jam of pregnant babies

caked in skin cracks

commingling with whatever

comprises aphid memories

an entire family tree branch

condensed to a grainy paste

in the time it takes one litter

of frilled shark pups to emerge

forty-two generations of aphids

have come and gone assuming

1) the aphids all died of old age

and 2) I didn’t murder them to

save my kale, the teeth really

are quite fucked up, rows and rows

of pearly tridents, are they

born with those or do their

baby tridents come in later, gums

born pregnant with adult tridents

aphid legs are made from

puberty mustache hair

often aphids are farmed by

ants tickling their aphid butts

so they excrete honeydew

which is a euphemism for pee

sweet sweet pee, ants making

aphid husbandry milk pee

frilled sharks are live

born like terrifying eel cows

suckling Poseidon’s benthic udders

when my daughter turned three

and a half she discovered

boredom frilled sharks

gestate long enough

to discover boredom but only

if they have a limit on their

embryonic screen time I’m actually

surprised all the time partly

by choice partly instinct

choice is an instinct

tickling out the honeydew

eating siblings out of boredom

getting startled by shadows

smooshing smooshing

dive dive dive

smooshing smooshing

dive dive dive

the first time she comes

giggle-running out of the

darkness my limbic system

ignites and a lizard voice

in my head whispers this is it

you’re dead meat

this small ghost that

looks like your daughter

is going to worse-than-

death you she loves that story

Dead Meat Walking

frilled sharks only

horror when lit

look like the number 10

when pregnant

but you’d only know that

if you were bioluminescent

babies having babies

having babies having

the aphid parasitoid wasp

lays her eggs inside

aphids so her babies

can have a juicy murder meal

when they hatch

most aphids are born pregnant

some simultaneously pregnant

with wasp larva

two flavors of immaculate

conception which is proof

God is just an alien

fucking with us from His

HQ in the midnight zone

zapping holy zygotes into everyone

building clocks out of

expanding abdomens

parasitoid paradise

it’s the frilly gill slits

the six frilly gill slits where

the past and future sit

in unison twitch on the stalk tip

sick in utero kickflips

when my daughter

turned three and half

it had been months since

she had seen another

human in the flesh who

wasn’t me or her mom

a third of her life now

in a bright bright dark

she said she wishes

that ladybugs didn’t exist

because they eat so many

aphids and I don’t tell her

why my hands are so red.

BIOGRAPHY

Robbie Q Telfer has performed and taught in hundreds of venues and institutions around the world. A co-founder of the Encyclopedia Show, he's been an individual finalist at the National Poetry Slam and has a collection from Write Bloody Publishing. He is currently an environmental educator at The Morton Arboretum outside of Chicago and he facilitates a bi-weekly, online poetry writing workshop called ‘More of a Comment Than a Question’.

All words and image shown courtesy of the artist Copyright Robbie Telfer