“A bowl of oatmeal,” I answer
when my acting teacher asks,
“What are you?”
But he is hungry for more
and wants to know the color
of my bowl.
“I don’t know,” I say.
“Oatmeal can’t see; I just feel
the smooth sides of… “
“Of what?” he interrupts.
“Of what is your bowl made?”
“Plastic?” I guess.
I am tired and hung over,
and it seems like a good guess.
But then, out of nowhere,
my muse whacks me
upside the head,
sentience ignites my protoplasm,
and I blurt, “Cheap blue plastic
like cereal box toys!”
I can see a Nabisco spoon man
knifing the air and tell my teacher
that it is diving
toward my gooey gray guts!
“Noooooooo!”
I shriek as I drop
into a writhing, agonized ball.
“Yes!” he shrieks, waving his arms
as if to cast a spell.
“Now bring yourself to life!”
And I feel
the oatmeal that is me morphing
into a swamp creature rising
from my blue lagoon and dragging
itself toward the sleepy town.

Joan Wiese Johannes has been widely published in journals and anthologies, and has four chapbooks, including He Thought the Periodic Table was a Portrait of God from Finishing Line Press. She co-edited the 2012 Wisconsin Poets’ Calendar and the Winter, 2019 issue of Bramble with her husband Jeffrey.