Great Lakes by Christy Sheffield Sanford

"Great Lakes" is a literary work with graphical elements that will require slightly longer load times. Clicking on the title here will open: Great Lakes. As it opens, a secondary window containing Mother Millennia navigation icons will open along with it. You may want to use the smaller window to get back to the rest of Mother Millennia. NOTE: Each thread icon on the left will take you from this work to the next work in its loop. The thread loops will not return you here, however, because of the high bandwidth requirements of this work. But you can always return here from the Story or Author Indexes. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Great Lakes: Map-Induced Trance States Beginning paragraphs: I like to see the oil playing around my mother's neck-black, sticky, iridescent puddles-enough to strangle a shore bird. Mucus-covered larvae swim round her thighs; zebra mussels glom onto her feet. The eels attach suckers just below her collarbone. We try to pull them off. She stumbles, sucked dry, bones fragile, chalking. Is my mother Lake Michigan or is she Lake Erie? I love my mother, Mimi Lane. Why am I doing terrible things to her? Do I want to kill the memory of her young? A capsized boat, one hand reaching for help, sinking with the tip of the mast. I like to see her elegance disappearing- ship-wrecked hair streaming upward. Will gar tear her limb from limb? Am I destroying propriety? Oh, Mother, why am I doing this to you? How far away they all are: Howard, Mimi Lane, Carl and Leonard, my Leonard, especially him.