Fine-Tuned Fetus Brain

Natalie Louise Tombasco

let’s narrativize the rashomon way
where in the first version bella is skinning
a rabbit and watching the price is right.
in an alternate, sister bella is new
at the convent, tasked with lighting
hundreds of altar candles,
then tuning the organ player.
in another, bella assists the gravedigger’s odd
practice of placing mardi gras beads upon
headstones he crushed on in grade school.
in the final version, bella hosts a twitch
stream that reacts to the royal ascot.
there’s foie gras, perrier—fit checks in minimal
burgundy tweed to offset dark academia
tuition costs: stained glass, ribbed vaults.
there’s a healthy amount of kink
shaming; sugar water licked
from fingers. i am the rabbit.
i self-generate nightly until flushed pink.
pleasuring her embryonic
sense of time & space—
from spacex launch to helen’s egg.
feudal lords of silicone valley.
god, i calculate you’re ashamed
of my exploits & titanic merriment,
unimpressed with aurora borealis—
all astronomical events for that matter.
bella’s goodreads will provide motive:
baudelaire and rimbaud live
next door bingeing french new wave,
& keats’s letters. acid-rotting corpses seep
through thin walls.
it is artichoke season in france,
which always gets them in a mood—
bookish dark, violet de provence—
to infiltrate the hedge maze
that is our exclusive friend group.
so, bella roles basic english department girlie
(homicidal plagiarizer) with a manual typewriter,
each period hammered in like a railroad spike.
this is progress. this is enlightenment.
bella is a woman in stem!
bella is beyond mortal coil.
i come up with the show tunes
to escape the vermin, bed bugs, gothic
cathedrals neighboring. i direct bella to spread
the ashes of this writer’s feud
in a walnut-paneled library, books red
as candy apples when a voice interrupts
with all god-given authority:
bella, come on down!
trouble finds bella (yikes),
or i won a trip to switzerland.
it’s up in the air. what is god’s plan?
bella’s upstaged your unlimited supply
of one-hit wonders with morbid curiosity.
lychee martinis, eyes in formaldehyde.
specimen x takes the worst scenic photographs
of bella. specimen x distracts her so.
the distraction stays & stays,
lingers like stench in a vent;
it lingers like pregnancy.