APE-2

by Paul Vermeersch

α)  The structure is a glowing cube without seam or blemish. Someone once
saw one side open like an iris. Inside they saw a mammoth resurrected before
the iris shrank again, smoothing itself into the colourless facade.  β)  At the centre
of the cube is a large white room: its surfaces all radiating full-spectrum light.

Ape-2 sleeps on a clean, blank sheet. 100 self-adhesive white electrode pads
speckle his hide like polka dots.  γ)  Ape-2 traces the fine line between tool-user
and cyborg. At what point, he wonders, does the branch that becomes the club
that extends the arm become the arm?  δ)  The City of Ape-2 is hidden

in the mountains. The city is a glowing cube next to a pyramid of glowing cubes
next to a line of glowing cubes under a single glowing cube floating in midair
in the mountains.  ε)  Someday the rivers, and the rains that feed them, will clot
in the dictionary: abalone, albacore, Amazon, Avalon, azalea, azure, etc., etc.

And all of Ape-2’s disciples will dress in the finest clothes that monkey money
can buy.  ζ)  Upheaval saw Ape-2 executed by electric chair. It took three days
for Ape-2 to rise from the dead. It took 300 years for all of his disciples to wear
little gold electric chairs on little gold chains around their little necks forever.

Paul Vermeersch works as a poet, multimedia artist, creative writing professor, and literary editor. His poetry is recently published or forthcoming in Rhino Poetry, Gargoyle Magazine, CV2, The Fiddlehead, and The Literary Review. He is the author of seven poetry collections, most recently Shared Universe: New and Selected Poems 1995-2020. A new collection is slated for fall 2025. Paul holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of Guelph for which he received the Governor General's Gold Medal. He teaches in the Honours Bachelor of Creative Writing & Publishing program at Sheridan College where he is the editor-in-chief of The Ampersand Review of Writing & Publishing. He is also the senior editor of Wolsak and Wynn Publishers where he created the poetry and fiction imprint Buckrider Books. He lives in Toronto.