Erik Kennedy

The Symbiosis Variations


Two different plumbers have accidentally pulled off our wonky door knob, which only I know how to fix. You're in my world now, mate! On TV, dreadful fish with mouths like portcullises get their gills cleaned by nimble little wrasses and everyone goes home happy, if fish have homes or happiness. Eighty per cent of plants live in symbiotic association with fungi and, boy, are Focus on the Family going to be upset when they hear. Sometimes the relationship is clear—the U.S. consumes what China produces—sometimes vague—a minor prince in eleventh-century Italy offers his soul to the Pope in exchange for protection against a thuggish, more important prince, and each gets a fiction. The opposite of love isn't hate: it's unrequited love. Send out the cryptozoologists to find this legendary creature: a poet who'll say she likes your work if you say you don't like hers.








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