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A Boy, an Island, a Country

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  A Boy, an Island, a Country  Tanner Clegg  The water is high and flat and the canoe is pointed toward the gaps between the islands. The thatch rooftops on the houses on the islands comb the underbellies of lethargic clouds. Bubbles repopulate in water displaced by the small motor at the back of the boat. We are moving north and west.  A small Bijagós man with a large fishing pole is sitting next to me. He casts, he lets the lure sink to the floor, he flips the rusted bail arm, he trawls. The fish match the clouds today, but he is patient. A bonga, which is something of a staple fish in the region, is deceived by the skittering jig, and the man is rewarded with 35 centimeters of lunch. He takes his knit cap off his head and dries the reel.  Humans aren’t the bonga’s only predator: the fish is routinely caught in the maws of nurse sharks and saltwater crocodiles. Bonga are not, however, eaten by the saltwater hippos or manatees of the region. These oceanic mammals are generally herbi
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Columba Livia Domestica

  Columba Livia Domestica  Tanner Clegg   Its head is radically spherical, almost to a fault, and its neck feathers do this cool green/purple iridescent thing when they comingle with sunlight. It nests alongside the emulsifying chemical compounds of rotten bridges and plywood-plastered apartment complexes, and it grazes in the upper strata of garbage cans, relishing your escapee fries at the bottom of the bag. Some say that it is nothing new and nothing special, that it is impolite and klutzy and gratuitously persistent and generally annoying. Others gleefully offer up heads, thighs, and wrists as landing pads.   ---   The global aviary is absolutely stacked with gawk-inspiring birds.   The mourning dove, with its soft and tan feathers and its ghostly and rhythmic coo, soars with the aplomb of divine metaphor—“And behold, the Holy Ghost descended like a dove”—carrying with it promises of peace and pleasantness. The bald eagle, with its E. PLURIBUS UNUM banner fastened between maxilla a
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A Tree to Pray Behind

We channel godly mimesis as we exclaim (we’re literally ‘exclaiming’), in lockstep unison:   “I am called of God. My authority is above that of the kings of the earth.”   I peek at my flashcard because I am new here.   “By revelation I have been selected as a personal representative of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is my Master, and He has chosen me to represent Him, to stand in His place, to say and do what He Himself would say and do if He personally were ministering to the very people to whom he has sent me.” “Try scrapping the flashcard for the rest,” my companion says.  “Okay.”  My voice, now alone, proceeds cautiously. “My voice is His voice. My acts are His acts. My doctrine is H—”  “Not quite. It’s words and then doctrine.”  “Ah. Sorry.” I’m always sorry.   “My words are His words. My doctrine is His doctrine. My commission is to do what He wants done, to say what He wants said; to be a modern witness in word and in deed of the divinity of His great and marvelous latter-day work.
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As I Sat in the Queue on Judgement Day

As I Sat in the Queue on Judgement Day Tanner Noah The human imagination bulges with stories of instantaneous ascendancy: Corruption puts on incorruption in the wink of an eye. Winning lottery tickets are redeemed, sugar daddies amassed. Nobodies are tapped by the nose of some invisible (but ostensibly accessible) wand, household worker finds within herself a household name, pumpkins become carriages, Tuesday you have a strangely-shaped nose, Thursday you’re being sniffed by perfume-proxy through others’ noses; Calvin Klien Inc. was once Calvin Klein: The son of a Hungarian immigrant who owned some corner store in Harlem.      Illusory teleportation machines of upward social mobility, of glory and honor, of romantic fulfillment have, by some way or another way, managed to wedge themselves between our gummyfolds for millennia. These muscles of daydreaming are visibly manifest in the earliest records of humanity, and the muscles of daydreaming, be they archaic or modern, love exercise
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