n. a worm; a weave
Green, olive, pale butter, cream, the soft-bodied grub in its portable case
Cases are tubular, collaged of debris, fastened by silk spun from the larval mouth
Mouth of the Great Lake blowing the last ice flats downriver
Rivers, riffles, lakes, streams, seeps, ponds, creeks—the architect builds its room in fresh waters
Water in December, cold and clean, a glittering guest at the front door
Door through which the head emerges: bristled, biting mouthparts, light & motion-sensing eyes
Eye of the rainbow sees panoramic caddis-snow—casemaker, collector, scraper, swimmer—adrift
Drifting through the midlayer on silken parachutes, out of Gondwana, across time
Time of peak drift, the sliver before dusk
Timespan of case construction, a day
Timeline of transfiguration, a year
Lifetime of fly, an anorectic moon
Moontime, the architect collects, in its grapple-hooked prolegs: sand, shell, stone, twig, bark, leaf,
____ cellulose-based rayon, polyester, acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene, polyacrylamide, vinyl ester
____ resin, polyvinyl chloride, thermoplastic polyurethane, polypropylene, polyethylene
Polyethylene plastic nurdles, one billion pounds a year, manufactured by Nova Chemical
Nova Chemical says their plastics make everyday life healthier for people on the St. Clair River
Rivers are prime sinks for marine microplastics
Microplastics wander my blood, my brain, my heart, my lungs, my liver, my kidneys
Microplastics colour my breastmilk, my eyes, my throat, my ovaries, my saliva, my urine
Microplastics are in the zooplankton, zebra mussels, moths, mosquitoes, mayflies, in gobies, perch,
____ pickerel, in bass, bloater, bluegill, in pumpkinseed, catfish, whitefish, in
In the developing world, says Nova Chemical, the thirst for plastics is off the charts
Charting Lake Huron by distribution, type, and abundance of plastic debris per beach
Beaches at Sarnia yield ninety-four percent of total polyethylene nurdles across all sites sampled
Samples over a decade show plastics in nine-tenths of all Great Lakes drinking water
Great Lakes drinking water should be clean and cold
Cold December moon, Manidoo-giziisoons, Little Spirit Moon, the soft-bodied grub in its
____ microplastic case
Cases are swallowed whole, with their soft-bodied spirits, by glittering trout with panoramic eyes
I am pretty pleased, says the mayor, industry is the real hero here
Here in Sarnia, come springtime, caddisfly lift from the river like mist at dawn
