{"id":4994,"date":"2023-09-04T17:36:35","date_gmt":"2023-09-04T17:36:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mtls.wpcenter.io\/issue26\/?p=4994"},"modified":"2026-10-14T16:03:54","modified_gmt":"2026-10-14T16:03:54","slug":"angela-sorby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue26\/angela-sorby\/","title":{"rendered":"Angela Sorby"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Heist<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Transportation\u2019s tough,<br>\nif you want to be transported:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">the blockbuster museum\u2019s hush<br>\nis uniform, like sand.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Adjust the audio tour,<br>\nand behind the curtain<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">of information hiss<br>\nstreams of static\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">what\u2019s art but marked<br>\nexits, the urge to piss, flush<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">and run?&nbsp; Up wheels the guard<br>\non his silent scooter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He\u2019s cranky:&nbsp; all day paintings<br>\nmurmur <em>Take me please&nbsp; <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">in modern and archaic<br>\ntongues.&nbsp; Meanwhile out<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">beyond Bernisse, two thieves&nbsp;<br>\nremove their gloves as light&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">pours through barn-slats.&nbsp;&nbsp;<br>\nUnder layers of linseed oil&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Gaugin\u2019s <em>La Fianc\u00e9e<\/em> warms&nbsp;<br>\nwith pleasure:&nbsp; finally her body<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">is moving unpredictably,<br>\nlike everything worth redeeming.<em>&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Amp<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You visit Ireland so late<br>\nin life you\u2019ve seen the sights<br>\nbefore you see them:<br>\nBlarney Stone,<em> check.<br>\n<\/em>Bog mummies, <em>check.<br>\n<\/em>Kilkenny.&nbsp; The Cliffs of Moher.<br>\nThen on the Sligo High Street<br>\na man in scuffed boots<br>\nplugs a mic<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">into a portable amp<br>\nand starts to sing, horribly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; You retreat<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">into Teague\u2019s Discount Shoes,<br>\nbut \u201cBenny and the Jets\u201d follows you,<br>\nhorribly, horribly,<br>\nthrough the open door,<br>\ndown aisles of brogues and heels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The shoe clerk shakes her head.<br>\n<em>God bless his voice, <\/em>she says,<br>\nand you feel a jolt,<br>\nlike a plane landing<br>\nin a country where you are still alone<br>\nbut less divorced<br>\nfrom the buried stones, the ruins<br>\nof the old monastic city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Apocrypha<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The cat slumps dead<br>\nin the vet\u2019s arms,&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">his weight exact at last.&nbsp;&nbsp;<br>\nCats are engineered<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">to pad from year to year,<br>\ntheir skeletons light<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">reversible equations<br>\naloof from paradoxes<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">posed by humans,<br>\nand yet this cat&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">is simultaneously<br>\ntoo fixed and too free<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">to burn or bury fully,<br>\nlike the Holy Trinity,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">or like memory,<br>\nand so his cells&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">chill slowly, settling&nbsp;<br>\ninto the planar ambiguity&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">of El Greco\u2019s <em>Pieta<\/em>.&nbsp;&nbsp;<br>\nEven St. Paul sanctioned<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">the apocryphal Bible,<br>\nthe one with the parable<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">of a cat that out-leapt<br>\nJordan\u2019s depths.&nbsp; In death,&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">does the spirit begin<br>\nto move, or does it rest?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The cat replies <em>both <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">in a dialect that\u2019s 90% water,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">because, as searchers&nbsp;<br>\nand divers know,&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">after a corpse sinks&nbsp;<br>\nit reverses course and floats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Reading Trouble<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cAye and yes, Starbuck, out of those forty years I have not spent three ashore.\u201d&nbsp;<br>\n&nbsp;\u2014Herman Melville, Moby-Dick<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When the first Starbucks ever<br>\nopened in downtown Seattle<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I went there on a semi-date<br>\nwith a kid who later OD\u2019d,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">but who really died of dyslexia:<br>\nif he\u2019d learned to read<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">as fluently as he dreamed,<br>\nhe could\u2019ve finished high school,&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">and lived to see Starbucks<br>\ngo viral from Seattle to Milwaukee,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">which makes me want to bring coffee<br>\nto that dead kid, David Lee,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">except it\u2019s expensive and hard<br>\nto order: no medium, no large,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">just veni, vidi, vici,<br>\nas if the most blah transaction<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">could go all Virgil\u2019s Aeneid,<br>\ncould go all Ovid\u2019s Metamorphoses,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">even in Wisconsin,&nbsp;<br>\nand it can,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">but you have to be a reader.<br>\n<em>Unfair, unfair,<\/em> sings the land-<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">locked mermaid over the door.<br>\nBut she too comes from a book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Heist Transportation\u2019s tough, if you want to be transported: the blockbuster museum\u2019s hush is uniform, like sand.&nbsp; Adjust the audio tour, and behind the curtain of information hiss streams of static\u2014 what\u2019s art but marked exits, the urge to piss, flush and run?&nbsp; Up wheels the guard on his silent scooter. He\u2019s cranky:&nbsp; all [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5001,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue26\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue26\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue26\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue26\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue26\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4994"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue26\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4994\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5248,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue26\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4994\/revisions\/5248"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue26\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue26\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue26\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue26\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}