The Glacier
Issue Three
Winter 2024

Magritte Turns Over in His Grave

He once handed Paul McCartney one of his famous green apples. On it, he wrote au revoir. This inspires what becomes the logo for The Beatles music label, and the apple is printed on thousands of records. One such record finds its way to the desk of one Steve Jobs. In this way, Magritte's Apple sells billions.

I want in on the magic, so I write APPLE POEM. I fill out the forms, submit APPLE POEM with clinical precision to the most prestigious of journals.

In the meantime, I tell AI the story. It generates an image: a disfigured and disjointed menagerie of Sergeant Pepper's velvet pants and a granny smith in a turtleneck. You dumb bastard. This is not art.

Ceci n'est pas une pomme, but I eat my monitor nonetheless. The plastic crunches, but it takes back teeth to snap through the screen. Electric juices run down my chin. My esophagus receives twelve emails. APPLE POEM is not the right fit for us.

I tongue the tart and crisp pixels in my teeth and wonder where it’s all gone wrong. Magritte's bones sigh in relief. He returns to the dead serious business of disconnected dreams.

There’s a Reason

people didn’t used to feed pigeons. 
Pigeons never

had good credit. They didn’t
have PayPal 

or Venmo. Before they hung QR
codes and Bluetooth 

speakers about the pigeons’ fat, 
greedy necks, 

people didn’t care a feather or a fig.
But now

there’s something in it for us. Feed
them a seed, 

queue up your favorite Billy Joel
song. Don’t go

changin’ to try to please me. I can’t
be pleased. 

Not anymore. I used to swim 
in my thoughts, 

in childhood’s web-footed kicks 
from the hip. 

The hungry mouth of a carp. Now, 
it’s different. 

Now we fund the pigeons. Most
days, I can’t do

the day, but the day does me
anyway. I stumble 

down to the park. I pull up the app, 
pockets full

of stale bread and little green pills. 
Me and a lone

pigeon by the park bench. I empty
my pockets 

Now the bird is wiggling around.
His speaker 

is warbling You never let me down
before…

But, if I’m honest, he still looks a 
little down.

First Marriage

His wife failed to develop as a carpenter. The bedroom was too full of bed. 

They overdid the whole honesty business. There was a microscope on the nightstand. He had taken another piece of her to gawk at. 

“You fit together like a ton of bricks.” His young wife wonders if it is a bad thing. “It’s not at all as you should. The maker of sea cucumbers and baby chicks did not make this.” 

“How should I know?” he chews his pipe. “Electrons, that’s how.” His wife notices a newly framed certificate on the wall. It celebrates his ability to remove his socks. 

“Go on, say it.” 

“Darling, I’ve only ever seen you remove the one.”

That ended it alright. There are just some things you can’t take back.

Renée Agatep is the winner of the 2022 Wolfson Poetry Prize. She is the author of Ohio Radio (Wolfson Press, 2023) and Funny Zoo (Bottlecap Press, 2023). Her latest work can be found in Poetry Ireland Review, CAROUSEL, and elsewhere. You can find her on BlueSky @goingbyrenee.bsky.social.

ISSUE THREE HOME