Devil’s Lake

Spring 2010 Issue

Brian Christian: Curls

Joy is the epiphenomenon of the year.

Our tonguetips form the once-frozen Bering Strait

over which a bacterial exodus passes. Joy in that.

The soloist runs out of steam and heads

for the head. Terrestrial water sloshes only

at the moon’s insistence. The brain may

circulate statistics—hail Bayes—but the mind is

riddled with particulars. I want to be

the rain that curls her hair, I say

to you whom I love still more.

BRIAN CHRISTIAN’s writing appears in AGNI, Seneca Review, Gulf Coast, Best New Poets, and Ninth Letter, on the web at Conjunctions and McSweeney’s, and in scientific journals such as Cognitive Science. Born in Wilmington, Delaware, Christian holds degrees in philosophy, computer science, and poetry from Brown University and the University of Washington. He lives in Seattle. More from this issue >