Photo by Eric Prouzet on Unsplash
Endomorphosis
The chrysalis comes in grey
matter, some lines of white
to tell the rest of me when
tearing starts.
It isn’t pain
as a bone might be
if pulled from me for some other
body to use.
No, it isn’t the pain of shifting
skin and splitting seams so
all the blushing becomes
a puddle.
It’s pain the way a tree breaks
ground the way the soil rips
and never stops
being ground.
The way the tree pushes roots
where the dirt once was
shoved and parted and made itself
new earth.
I can feel the rending of the shell like soil
savor the waves stretching
gaps filling with new ways of knowing
this sky I am
Wings unfurl in grey and red
dendrite patterns stretch and flap and become
a familiar stranger in this body
still apart from the ground.
Three Times Asked and Answered
Are you sure
asked before the twenty-four unhidden stars
five floors above the long-set sun
when you reach to bind one
willingly from two and he whispered
in one-third certainty
yes
Are you sure
asked before the tender touch
of her allure twists to a tongue
that would conjure a siren song
from the satin night and from the two again
make one when he states
in two-thirds certainty
Yes
Are you sure
asked before his hands reach deep into her
to secure the final screaming
lure that will make more of him than he had
before her offer to cast this cure on him and
again he said
with his full chest,
three-thirds certainly
YES
Family Knots
Flaking white and red rust rip through holes in the blue
tarp we pull snugly over the patio furniture. Dad pulls
twine in and around the corners, wraps the metal
leg of a table, and I meet him in the middle.
We twist into a knot
we know we’ll have cut
come the thaw.
Winter will mangle these threads, make untangling
impossible, demand the simple edge to sever the mess
so we can unpack the plastic chairs and pool decorations.
And under the sun, six or more of us
will wash the grime from the seats,
scrub the grit from the tables, power through
stains in the concrete and place everything
neatly in the open
for as long as the cold can be kept at bay.