The Aorta Bends

by Camille Clair

{ early summer }

there must be no consolation, simone weil repeats and i believe her

a precious absence  a propulsion a gust of wind through the aorta 

one week before i see you again, i record myself reciting the first chapter of transparent things in the car :

a thin veneer of immediate reality is spread over natural and artificial matter, and whoever wishes to remain in the now, with the now, on the now, should please not break its tension film.

i consider the tension film — take care to notice each and every tricky iteration : hot milk, spray fix, eyelid, fishnet, layer of protective foam  give thanks for my intact organs all the special liquids separated into bags

i ask what i should do next and you say, “stay”

the next day, i order 1000 hornworm eggs off the internet and just like that, my fate is sealed

a few days later, the eggs arrive in a nondescript manila envelope as i unpack them, i realize i am responsible for not only this batch of egg’s complete life cycle, but for the life cycles of generations to come... i consider possible inheritors  and realize how few people i trust 

the eggs are silvery gray : diapause — suspended development —  awaiting an increase in temperature to resume life-making 

1000 : a reflection of eternity glued to the center of a petri dish  i place the eggs under a heat lamp and examine the scatter fresh little pearls plucked from icy water

i hear a faint, microbial popping, as the souls alert 

the eggs shiver in anticipation — blinking like eyes

plato says bewilderment has two causes, either from coming out of the light or from going into the light i repeat this over and over and to everyone i know

900 fluttering eyelashes spill from the swollen eyes

i place a slice of green tomato in the glass dish and the twitchy larvae engulf the fruit like a mold

the hornworms, nocturnal, feed through the night their incessant nibbling infiltrates my dreams — gets louder as they grow larger

by day, the worms are limp — easy to mistake for dead and each day i am almost convinced they are actually dead but then the sun sets, and they reanimate

{ mid summer }

the worms pale and swell, elongating like drips of wax down a candle

they do not seem to have a sense of where their own body ends / another begins and will nip at each other, if they do not land upon a chunk of fruit fast enough

the simultaneous decay of fruit and worm carcass attracts masses of fruit flies the flies ride the thrashing worms like conquered beasts ( leviathan )

i worry the fruit flies will lay eggs on the worms and maggots will grow in their soft flesh this thought becomes my primary anxiety and keeps me awake at night

i read the theatre and the plague artaud describes total “organic upheaval” which is exactly how i would describe the scene taking place in the innocuous plastic bin on my kitchen table ( wormland ) 

i don’t have anyone over during this time due to the death stench i don’t go out much either as the worms do not like it when i am absent for too long

i begin referring to myself as “the worm keeper” i set fruit fly traps all around my apartment periodically refresh the fruit, empty the vinegar

i cower beneath the window, sipping dry august air i beg for reprieve from the sweet summer rot

when sleep falls, i dream i am walking through a high school the school is familiar — i know my way around, though i did not attend i hide under a desk and a giant worm slides past the worm has a gun

artaud says, we do not die in our dreams but i seem to remember dying in this one

{ late summer }

the fat worms gloat, savoring their dominance

the situation at hand has advanced far beyond my control, though its all of my accord a pestilence i welcomed into my apartment, i bred

i toss slices of bell pepper into the worms’ container from a few feet away as if they are demons, hungry for human flesh

the silkworms i raised a year prior — which was before i met you, and when i still swam in the ocean from time to time — were much more elegant the process of raising them, more sensitive and melancholic... 

the silkworm, which consumes only one thing ( mulberry leaves ) and never hungers for another, decays so quickly, exceptionally — as if to spare the onlooker, the mourner 

it erases itself and is free... 

i don’t use my kitchen during this time, it is worm territory i eat lingonberry jam straight from the jar in the furthest corner of the room

lingonberry, my favorite type of jam, is slightly pinker than guts but resembles guts in the dim light of my basement apartment

i eat guts as my worms eat guts just as i ate mulberry fruit, and my silkworms ate the leaves

this kinship, via likening of matter, feels important a necessary step

i recall the way my ex-boyfriend seemed to develop an affection for the silkworms and how, last winter, we scoured the local golf course for mulberry trees

i often wonder if it is possible for a human being to live off of a single food type the identification of this food becomes my mission from time to time

i imagine there is a mushroom out there with unrivaled cellular composition  i want to be the one to find it

my heartbeat is erratic, slightly painful i wonder if it’s due to the excess of sugar or deficit of everything else

in panic, i turn on every single light in my apartment — need it as bright as possible i play an audiobook, as loud as possible, to drown out the gnawing of the worms, and the pounding of my heart 

the narrator describes spirits as “luminous eggs”  i recall my immediate devotion to the bundle of worm eggs and miss their company their silence  

i pause to do a few push-ups, sit-ups, leg-lifts

i struggle to gather the courage required to assess the worms’ rancid domain...

as the sun begins to rise, and the worms quiet with the first soft rays, i approach their container — eyes blurry, drippy 

the worms are now as long and wide as my fingers a few are dead, chewed to pieces and scattered about

i examine the living ones, which seem to have doubled in size since i last checked in, and notice the dorsal aorta is now clearly visible 

due to my sleepless, anxious delirium, it is difficult to determine whether or not the rhythmic pulsation of the thick, dark vein is a hallucination as my vision normalizes, i recall the significance of this undulation  the worm is ready to pupate i hastily tear apart tissue and old notes : a substrate in which the worms will burrow

i fill every available glass with the paper bits and drop a worm into each one the worms flail for a moment, then disappear below the surface to find their next self 

i cover the little tombs in dark cloth and place them side by side in a cupboard — light interferes, suspends development 

the fruit flies dissipate, in search of superior rot 

relieved, we all sigh — myself, my fish, and every vessel — we join in rest

{ early fall }

i read a selection from the moth poem by robin blaser out loud to my incubating worms:

first in translucent lymph with cobweb-threads the brain’s fine floating tissue swells, and spreads

the marble hand, probably from its contact with the uncharmed heart, had strength to relax its hold and yield the harp to me

nerve after nerve the glistening spine descends, the red Heart dances, the Aorta bends

the waxy cocoons beat like hearts in their glass tank they are warm to the touch  likely due to an absorption of the october heat, and not a reflection of interior conditions

the cocoon itself is tough, but what about the changing insect inside — is it molten, is it ink?

i line the tank with paper and trace the pupae’s movement with a dull pencil they respond to my gaze, twitching on an invisible axis

i grow impatient make it a routine to carry the tank into the bathroom when i shower humidity speeds up pupation — i read somewhere — or maybe its heat? it’s heat

i consider life cycles — cycles — the condition to begin again metamorphosis, to begin anew

the worm, the moth, the (supernatural) biological agreement feels caught in the good/evil binary, a paradoxical renunciation of innocence

simone says, extreme purity can contemplate both the pure and the impure : impurity can do neither : the pure frightens it, the impure absorbs it. it has to have a mixture

i play an audiobook from my laptop speaker and the cocoon tank rattles 

the author projects a longing onto the scab of a strangers knee if a scab was all you had left of someone, would you keep it?

the cocoons are like scabs, a protective armor formed around the self-wounding and self-healing creature

( truth exists in between an appearance and a disappearance )

i wonder what state the cocoon will be in when the moth emerges will it be torn to shreds or lifted like an envelope? will there be something to keep?

{ mid fall }

the pupae gain momentum... sentience? i continue to trace their movements, which intensify in frequency and vigor

the cocoon thins by the day and i am soon able to make out topographies across the moths’ wings, to hear them beat against the calloused sheath

the moths’ impatient rhythm fills my apartment my heart joins in, the bass

i stare down at the awakening mummies, reassure them i am ready, waiting

in one fatal thrust, the pupae immolates, and expels the frantic moth a milky pink ooze leaks from the desecrated cocoon i consider the composition of this supernatural fluid holier than blood 

the fresh moth is wet and awkward with matted fur like a newborn mammal it unfurls and furls its proboscis, stretches its wings the colony of hawk moths sip nectar from tiny honey jars which i took from a tea tray at the bonaventure hotel 

i am bewitched by the moth frenzy will them to live forever

the first hatched and largest, mother sphynx, i name Glass she clings to my sweater while i work at my desk, tastes a teardrop on my fingertip

at night i hear the moths flitting against the glass : their nightly conversation it keeps me awake. 

12 MOTH SURVIVE

i imagine one moth on each numeral of the clock, so i purchase three clocks but don’t set the time on a single one — just listen to them tick

i place the moths on the glass of a classroom clock and the surface illuminates, as if decoded 

simone says, the circle is the symbol of monotony which is beautiful… the swinging of a pendulum of monotony which is atrocious…monotony is the most beautiful or the most atrocious thing. the most beautiful if it is a reflection of eternity - the most atrocious if it is the sign of an unvarying perpetuity 

i mix together syrupy red hummingbird nectar and spoon it into the sepal of a plastic flower the moths dance around the flower, scattering the fluid  i find little red sugar crystals everywhere on the windowsill and in my hair

{ early winter }

the moth die and i’m prepared

i place each dead moth in a plastic medicine vial, purchased, consumed, and saved exactly for this purpose i seal the vials with wax and paint the lid red with nail polish 12 pinky-sized tombs 

i plan to give you one the next time we meet and expect you to hold on to it forever

i hesitate to admit that the moths never mated, never laid eggs i do not know why, and consider it an immense failure the cycle, irreparably broken: i recognize an end

Camille Clair is an artist and writer based in Los Angeles. In 2019, she graduated from UCLA School of Arts and Architecture with a B.A. in Art. Camille's work concerns the indefinite and divergent; she is interested in clues, shadows, and what it means to leave "a trace".  

The title “The Aorta Bends” is taken from a line of Robin Blaser’s writing “The Moth Poem”.