Art Bitch

Skinner






Mark Allen Miller

Crimes Against Nature

"Dreaming a Few Minutes in a Different Element"

Minnie Bruce Pratt


The faint streak of little fish, the dim bottom
rocks heavy with quartz. Our fingers grope,
sift sand, brittle mussel shells. We can drift
close to the place where air, land, water meet,
edge of the creek, and see on the damp margin
a squiggled trail, infinite small snail tracks,
no beginning or end, wringled, undeciphered,
a message left for us, mysterious words seen
through the huge eye of the creek.

I love this poem. Pratt gives us a beautiful image of resistance. Though not outright optimistic, for me it's still encouraging. Knowing the struggles Pratt faced in her personal life for being openly queer (separated from her children by a discriminatory legal system, pushed to the margins of society), it's no wonder she paints a "dim" picture of the world she experiences. However, marginalized she's still a part of the natural world and though she sees struggle all around her, in the end she can step back and find hope in a bigger picture and arguably a divine plan.

It blows my mind that the natural world blossoms and flourish from diversity, yet humans compulsively stamp out difference like a weed.