Megin Jimenez

Intake Manifold 

I don’t want to go to Mars 

Don’t trust a man with a driverless mission 

In the museum, there is a map from 1569 of the known world, 

and at the edges, terra incognita, where the sea 

monsters watch and wait. I don’t want us to name 

the last surviving member of a species 

even with tenderness, like Lonesome George, 

a tortoise we wouldn’t have known without Darwin 

“the rarest creature in the world” 

It’s none of our business what that sea monster knew of itself 

Robotic dogs patrol the jungles, news articles 

call them terrifying in a half-joking way 

that’s part of the story 

In the museum, there is a medieval painting 

Of the carnival season, when the poor could mock 

the rich with impunity 

There is a painting of a man with a stone planted in his forehead, 

“a popular symbol for the incurable stupidity of mankind” 

Sleep is like a mysterious organ: vital to animals’ health, but the 

mechanisms that control it are still unknown 

Birds rehearse their songs in active sleep 

Octopus change the color of their skin 

I want to know why men are afraid of women

Self-Portrait in My 40s 

When I was 22, I earned my living as a receptionist. 

I had a postcard pinned to a wall by my desk 

that I would look to for reassurance. The postcard 

reproduced a painting of a green apple 

that took up an entire room. 

Wooden floors, dull pink walls and a window. 

Only that green apple filling the room. 

The postcard gave me comfort because 

I knew it was a portrait of me: 

not even ripe yet, the luscious hidden, 

alive, of an undeniable color, and big. 

Big, big, big, too big for that office building 

in the financial district. In the painting, just visible 

outside the window, was the sea. I held another life in me. 

There are 340,000 millionaires in New York City, 

otherwise defined as high-net worth individuals. 

I’m still not sure where they’re displacing me to. 

I measure my net worth in postcards 

from the early 20th century, gathered 

through sessions of hypnotized pawing through 

boxes in bookstores, street fairs, flea markets 

in cities I’ve known, or passed through. Sometimes 

I suspect I may have given away the best postcards 

in a letter, or taped to a gift, thereby lowering my net worth. 

Some of this I regret. 

But still, I have black-and-white photos of a glass arcade in Naples 

and scenes on creamy paper, tinted with unrealistic colors, 

dreamy blues of a lake in Higgins, Texas, and the sky 

behind the Flatiron Building. The dome of the Paris Pantheon 

is a pale grey. On the other side, extinct, looped handwriting 

conveying nothing in particular, and an amazing date 

when it was written (22 mai 34, Un grand bonjour). 

Now I know my portrait is in a scent, one I’m in search of. 

The opposite scent of layers of serums, creams, and sunscreens. 

A heady tree sap, salt, cardamom, or simply, 

actual yellow lemons, a smell to catch hold of 

when falling asleep, an exclamation in a silent winter. 

On the commuter train, I see prosperous men who have, I hope, 

at least been softened by their children. I don’t feel as old as anyone.

At the James Merrill House 

It was a kind of temple, the walls the color of flame 

I became the queen of the borrowed light 

I knew that water will prevail, through rain, 

melted glaciers, springs, 

fish in the basement after the rain stops 

Elements refer to stones or fierce weather 

I knew that we would face the elements of what we’re made of 

He was asking questions that don’t have answers, 

below the tiniest landscape painting in the world 

I became a peacock, a creature with many eyes, 

known to be vain, but in a masculine sense, 

with a harsh, sharp cry, 

left to roam immaculate gardens, lawns of estates