Still Life with Poppy, Insects, and Reptiles

By Xinyan Chen

Still Life with Poppy, Insects, and Reptiles — Otto Marseus van Schrieck, ca. 1670

in the centre of it all, a snail seems to float

girded by a poppy leaf, it carves a thin trail

towards the stem. painstaking. the other snails

rummage in the dirt below, looking for something to eat.

we have starved the animals. the crops are subsumed by dirt.

and what do we grow in its stead? what serves

as shelter and food and art—

a lone poppy, in the centre of it all, leaves jagged

with power, with desire. buds tilted down

a subservient nod. and the butterflies and dragonflies and creatures of every sort,

everything left on this earth, they gather towards it

drawn by its promise of mad honey;

what more could we want, on an earth where

the dirt wilts everything it touches, where we have made it into something

life-taking, the little caps of mushrooms peeking aboveground

toxic, everything toxic, poisonous to the touch. and the poppy?

our crop: you could call it subsistence. this denial

isn’t it lovely, our only hope, bright red against the setting

we’ve inherited. isn’t it lovely. it’s lovely if you think it is, if you believe:

here, take a little bit of this, a little bit of that. let me

grind up the seedpod for you. isn’t this lovely.

here, a poultice for your wounds. poison and antidote

in this unrelenting world. i tilt your head up, you drink—

isn’t this lovely?

Xinyan Chen is a first-year in Columbia College, planning on double majoring in Linguistics and East Asian Languages & Cultures. Outside of school, she is a lover of good food, fragrant tea, cozy blankets, and curious books.