7 years study: comparative biology, retinal tissue culture, genotyping, spectrography—reduced to one TikTok: the rabbits, after countless generations eking out existence on the urban fringes, have evolved to see only shades of grey and yellow. The reel flickers: warmth to warmth: damp-dark burrow-dirt, the jonquil moon or streetlight, the daffodil warmth emitted from windows, a startling gazania sun. What is most surprising, our phd candidate narrates, is the absence of green. Look: this array of photoreceptors cannot discern what is dirt, what is lawn, what is crumbled asphalt. Such things, to be known, must be taken on the tooth. Our candidate pauses the video, finds her own braid in her mouth, sucks, surprised by its lack of juice.
Kathryn Reese lives on Peramangk land in South Australia. She works in medical science and writes poetry and flash fiction. Her work can be found in Glassworks, Kelp Journal, Epistemic Literary and Neoperennial Press Heroines Anthology.
“The reel flickers: warmth to warmth: damp-dark burrow-dirt, the jonquil moon or streetlight, the daffodil warmth emitted from windows”
ReplyDelete“Look: this array of photoreceptors cannot discern what is dirt, what is lawn”
Moving how many moments can be contained in a few seconds, and performative summary’s can win an audience or lose them in the very same occurrence. The pass or fail of one moment.