Like velvet, like the surface of the moon. A field of cream, a bolt of pale silk. Not wax or plastic, but mold. A white mold sprayed across the surface to protect something so soft and delicate. To give it backbone, give it flavor. It suggests a decaying whale. Dead on the floor of the ocean, so many organisms are feeding on its body that it looks as if the skeleton of the whale is wearing a fur coat. I envision it like the rind of brie, although instead of the soft, resilient knock that the rind lets out when one taps it, there would be a boat-sized ripple of wet, white powder. When a box that’s been molding in a basement is pried open and emits a dusty, mildew-smoke, like an exhale of cigarette smoke, like a cough in freezing air. Something has to keep the brie from mushing everywhere. Something has to give it that stinky, rich, briny, sensual flavor. Sometimes that which decays also protects, enriches, transforms. Brie, like the metamorphosis from decaying whale to sleeping polar bear on the seafloor.
Alana Keiser graduated from the University of Minnesota with a BA in English and Creative Writing. She is an emerging poet and creative nonfiction writer who is drawn to the juicy, the joyful, the grotesque, and the mundane. She produces a creative newsletter called Shuck the Husk. Alana lives in Minneapolis, MN.