Brent Christianson

Brent Christianson lives in Madison, Wisconsin. He and his wife, Rebecca, have three daughters, a dog, a cat and several mice (because of the ineffective cat). His work has appeared in several journals and issues of the Wisconsin Poets' Calendar.


Algae Blooms on Lake Mendota

The Limnology grad student raises the beaker
and the Oz green glow of refracted sun
looks as beautiful as one of the drinks in the old Star Trek
where Captain Kirk presses a button in the ship’s mess and the door opens
and he takes out a strange shaped glass with a strange colored fluid
which he hands to the ambassador from the Klingon Empire
and we all know that Kirk knows not to trust him
but that doesn’t mean he’s going to poison him
because even star ship captains in a time of war
exercise morality and restraint (even though the Klingon ambassador
is obviously up to no good and will try to steal Federation plans
and hand them over so that they can do something
sinister like, maybe, turning the water on the home planet
into a breeding ground for toxic algae)
and the thought flashes that Captain Kirk, as a Canadian,
was also probably a Scot and his name indicates that
the show is ecclesiastical and Presbyterian and so
maybe it was meant all along that the Klingons would become
allies in later shows and Spock would never make peace
between his Vulcan and Human halves
and this lake was intended from the foundations of the world
to grow green and greasy from lawn and garden runoff.

   •   •   •

Hail

Since the wind hadn’t broken it
I was sure the hail would leave
the solar glow globe alone
and I was right until
one small ice pebble,
like the cold hard word
of someone whose love we crave,
cracked it
leaving the smooth surface in shards
laying it open
to a violent world.