9.5 / May 2014

Etiquette for a Bioluminescent Red Tide

In which every girl’s favorite dinoflagellate
administers a lesson in self protection.

When jostled, bloom. You are the sum effect of subatomic light.
You are— a solar storm in a water bottle. One bad bacteria, strapped
with a chemical flare gun, trailing flagellum in your hair. Luciferin,
Ladies, Luciferase. Remember that the turbulence of one small thing
is the equivalent of silence. But you. You number uncountable.
You sum to spectacle, to glorious, to might.


Sara Biggs Chaney received her Ph.D. in English in 2008 and currently teaches first-year writing in Dartmouth's Institute for Writing and Rhetoric. Sara's poems and flash fictions have recently appeared (or will soon appear) in Word Riot, SunDog Lit, Dr. T.J. Eckleburg Review, Menacing Hedge, Whiskeypaper, and other places. You can catch up with Sara at her blog: sarabiggschaney.blogspot.com.
9.5 / May 2014

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