Mercury 2/3
Ice
Mercury is our hottest planet, but pockets of ice cling to the shadows of its mountains. Where do they hide during the day? Would you recognize your unmet half-brother when he passes you on the street?
As a child I hung out for the first ice of autumn. Not the frost that skiffs a forgettable dew. An Elijah breath, shards of colors at an intersection of concrete and grass. The instant when a mirror knows it has more words than reflections.
The next dare after snowflakes is DNA.
Mercury in 3D
Apollo is the son you’d bring home to mother. He studies hard, doesn’t do drugs, escapes the Draft lottery, and becomes a doctor like all good Jewish boys. A specialist, even. He’s much better with money than you, buys shares before the Bull, sells before the Bear. He trashes the little he had to learn about the Holocaust and wishes that others would do the same. Getting even is a fatter bank account, and imagination is the shortest path to bronze.
Hermes is the null to his cross. He played hard, did every drug he could scrounge, never registered for the Draft, and shortened the straightest line between college and a pay slip. He becomes an IT specialist – that is, he flogs barcode readers to merchants who think “dpi” stands for Department of Primary Industries. He keeps his money unrolled and doesn’t mind when it dissolves in his fingers. He will watch a Holocaust video on his cellular phone with a widescreen attitude. He knows that imagination means market share, so he buys it fresh, at full retail.
Vulcan is the chink in their armor. Scientists blame him for the tic in Apollo’s cheek, and Hermes’ larrikin streak. Microcephalic at birth, due to brutal forceps, he was excused from study, ignored by the Draft, and content enough to conspire in tongues with the other vegetables. Some of his best doctors are German and he is grateful for any attention the Holocaust and anything else brings him. He is pure imagination, and finds it a warm word under the stars.
Arrow