We are not
unlike serpents:
at intervals
we must shed
our skins and
enter new lives.

Are you uncomfortable
in the comfort
you have created?
Do you itch for no reason
you can think of?
Do you long
for the scent
of flowers you
have never seen?
Do desire flesh
you have not met?

Lives wear out.

Someone new
longs to be born.

It may be time
to molt and bolt.

New lives,
new roads.

The Dharma
wheel spins
trailing wonders.

Live or die,
we must follow.

  ~mce

Total shock, I say, what occurred
At our local aquarium in recent years.
Some call it the type of scandal
That violently shakes two hemispheres.

Henry and Roxy had been an item.
Much older than she, Henry was bound
To guard and protect his little lady.
A more loyal penguin was hard to be found.

How they loved to sing together!
He would belt out and she would intone.
The happy couple frolicked and preened--
Happy not to be alone.

Molting season came and Roxy
Experienced her catastrophic molt.
Henry stood by and guarded his sweetheart.
Of attentiveness he lacked not a jolt.

Roxy's feathers soon returned
And there she was in all her glory.
Then poor Henry started his molt.
That's when Floyd entered the story.

While Henry hid from penguin view,
Floyd caught Roxy's eyes.
His feathers were back in abundance.
What happened next? You can surmise.

When Henry's feathers finally returned,
Floyd had become Roxy's new mate.
They did what penguin couples do
While Henry sadly accepted his fate.

The new family soon multiplied,
And Henry eventually found a new friend.
What started out as an outrageous scandal
Wasn't so horrible in the end.

Scandals come and scandals go.
Some of them are hard to avoid.
Aren't you glad that you don't molt
Like our friends Henry and Roxy and Floyd?

- by Bob B

embers like the roasting of firewood
rocks you would find deep in the mantle of the planet
turn to royal purple
to a deep midnight blue
Mystic origins

fades and fades
into immeasurable darkness

I often sit and wonder:
why must I always say bye
why can’t it stay a while longer
why is it so unaffected
so glorious
as I molt and molt in misery
I’m ranting now

Its like the tighter I hold on to it
Squeeze him to myself
The more it flows; he flows
metaphysical.

just like hands full of sand grains
draining from both wrists
loosely like the dark unfathomable waves
I miss you darling, but is it really
you I miss

Oh sunshine?
Dimming over a limitless horizon
Reaching infinity
as I approach zero
I’ve always hated calculus.

can’t see the clouds now, they’re turning darker
strange shapes they take on
tears roll near the rims
of kohl stripped eyes
Traditional, perhaps .

they flow now
rolling loosely like ocean waves
As I watch the night take over

The air is crisp.
Crisp, that is the word my dad used to describe Gwen's voice after the No Doubt concert. I was eight then.

Crisp, the word I thought of, when I was flicking that brown lighter I thought it would be funny to buy, sitting on the stoop. Striking the wheel, careful not to hit the little red button. The air swept against the sunglasses I paid too much for with the lenses that are mismatched and the sweater my mom bought me two christmases ago that originally I hated.

Falling leaves drift by those little windows to my soul but I am too distracted by the thought of him coming to pick me up to try to attach them back to the tree. Too bad too, because with every leaf detached, comes winter further on my face.

Thats when the crystals fall from my dreams, and cover the once adobe hills in spells of skyscrapers. Those are the guys who form tools out of my can of hairspray and chip at the ozone trying to scrape off the blue, and see what all that paint is covering. Icarus is horrified.

In rows like crumpled paper set,
The way one might design a brooch,
There sets a sparkle down so purely
Capital, beyond reproach and sure
She is the blackest flea who sits
Upon an old green dog, now should

You query, her name's a pond.  In Gaelic
It's pronounced: Baile Átha Cliath—
But in Irish she's plain, mightily named,
Dublin.  Where broods the dove, linnet
And swan.  Now take them pi'jons, they got
Dank habits and linnets lament the silent

Stones.  Sure, the goose gave out and took
To the air, but the swans, they've landed,
To roost, enchanted as 'Children of Lir,'
And so becomes a changeling child's
Fair city, for in her anointed proximity,
Gracious white birds do bathe and molt,

Supplied as I can tell, she looks black-
Pooled in clusters, long side her creases.
Stout nectar flows in near every nook
And cranny, but yer man, he's never
Busy, that malty fish, daftly avoids,
Swimming spirals round like buggies

Do on petals, he'd rather grace gardens
By drinking their dew.  O Dublin town,
She wends her ways and rows her houses
Round-a-bout on cobbled shores in tribute
To sprite, deary and fey, Anna Livia—
Who like a stem of blood, stabs right

To the heart of Dublin Bay— and proud
As a crowned thorny, who once had reeked,
She's bloomed large, into one grandeous
Beauty, like a céilí so finely fiddled—
A sandy, spirited, bombastic beach-
Flower, she is, a flag so fitting upon

The doons.  In dream, I flocked to her
Like the wild geese and saw her coy'd
Repose and there I spied, from mackerel
Skies— one monstrous, Irish rose!

Molt

Did your wings get heavy with the rain?
Did you toss the morning dew back to the air?
When did it start to burn?

Though the morning sunrise curled your hair,
The silence of two thousand sunsets left you
Sheared
Shivering
Until you couldn’t stand to hug yourself anymore.

Your rags are little more than a veil,
Yet they chewed through the fiber of your skin
Biting
Binding
Until you became inseparable.

At some point you have to realize what’s going on.
Is it slow? Do you even have time to look down and stop yourse—
Calm down


and breathe.

Feel the future pelt your neck.
Feel the present fill your lungs.
Feel the past ride up your throat.

Take one last step into the edgeless expanse.
And fly.
Even though you can’t feel it.

Listen.
Listen to your wings quiver in the storm.

Only friendship.
You made yourself clear - clear as glass - that it could never be more.
But as I too am glass, a small shard of me broke off and shattered.
And why did it ignite my spirit to be in your presence, to be enfolded in your warmth
Why, why did it set my heart aflame, burn me with such flammable, incendiary envy
To see you lust after another, to want far beyond friendship with them
Why did that melt me
I was already committed to another, no matter if it was a dry, barren whisper of once-existing love or a forest of endless rain
It was commitment
Yet in spite of this, I continued to melt
Melting, right down to my core
Where I am just sand
Vulnerable, exposed, walked-on sand that could, at any second, be picked up by the wind and taken to another pit of uncertainty
But you
You dropped the empty attempts
And you began giving me your time
You showed me the naïveté that I am, and you took my hand and led me through a dark room
It was cold, and I was afraid
And you could not tell me that "everything would be okay"
Because this was real, unfiltered life you were motioning to before me
And though it was not a fully comfortable realisation,
The cold slowly thawed, from the outsides into my core, my sand
And as I thawed, as you too made yourself more vulnerable,
I at last began to take shape
Perhaps I have a calling
Beyond this fragile shell I consistently run back to for shelter, return to when it yearns back for my unearthed body to be protected again
But I knew better,
That when you molt from your armour,
Its purpose has been used up, and it is now just an empty shell, and it is time for that shell to be discarded.
And now, in my infantile flesh,
I trust that you can be my protector until my new shell can learn to harden
I am still unsure today if it has solidified,
Because I am focused elsewhere
Focused on you
My heart's every beat feels light at the remembrance of you
My mind's every thought a whirlwind
From the dissonance of reaching for you and being tempted to go back under the comfort of my old shell, from the knowledge that these two cannot coexist
But my soul, my soul is nearing soundness at last
Because with you here, I feel that my honest identity is at last coming to life
With you here,
Your breezes blow, but I do not fear that I will be carried away
Your shore arrives, but I do not fear that I am going to wash away
Though it was you who dared grind me down to my initial state of innocent sand,
You have sculpted me, even with the uselessness that I've felt I am
Shown me my potential
And made me a flourishing seashore.

Becoming myself
Rising from the ashes of a girl
Into the fires of womanhood
I am between
Slowly, gradually
I am finding things about myself
that I never knew
Was it that I never asked?
Or is it newly hatched?
That I'll never know
But surely I am becoming me
Flaming feathers of confidence rising every month or so
As I molt my childhood fears
My body shifts to accommodate for life ahead
And make me beautiful
Victory comes closer
As required schooling gets closer to ending and college creeps in
Drama is soon to taint my crimson
Pressure increases
But I will continue to transform
Despite all this
And become the brightest phoenix I can be

fickle day
leaf-chaser squalls
end-of-summer molt
‘white bellies’
the dry gale has begun

pick and claw
limited feeding & foraging
beam winds, warps
and tides
the dry gale has begun

swimming legs
swimming legs
where is bottom?

In rows like crumpled paper set,
The way one might design a brooch,
There sets a sparkle down so purely
Capital, beyond reproach and sure
She is the blackest flea who sits
Upon an old green dog, now should

You query, her name's a pond.  In Gaelic
It's pronounced: Baile Átha Cliath—
But in Irish she's plain, mightily named,
Dublin.  Where broods the dove, linnet
And swan.  Now take them pi'jons, they got
Dank habits and linnets lament the silent

Stones.  Sure, the goose gave out and took
To the air, but the swans, they've landed,
To roost, enchanted as 'Children of Lir,'
And so becomes a changeling child's
Fair city, for in her anointed proximity,
Gracious white birds do bathe and molt,

Supplied as I can tell, she looks black-
Pooled in clusters, long side her creases.
Stout nectar flows in near every nook
And cranny, but yer man, he's never
Busy, that malty fish, daftly avoids,
Swimming spirals round like buggies

Do on petals, he'd rather grace gardens
By drinking their dew.  O Dublin town,
She wends her ways and rows her houses
Round-a-bout on cobbled shores in tribute
To sprite, deary and fey, Anna Livia—
Who like a stem of blood, stabs right

To the heart of Dublin Bay— and proud
As a crowned thorny, who once had reeked,
She's bloomed large, into one grandeous
Beauty, like a céilí so finely fiddled—
A sandy, spirited, bombastic beach-
Flower, she is, a flag so fitting upon

The doons.  In dream, I flocked to her
Like the wild geese and saw her coy'd
Repose and there I spied, from mackerel
Skies— one monstrous, Irish rose!

Gaping voids attached
at velvet hems reveal
An oscillating, silky shrine
of serpentine appeal

A sacellum of spit
where crimson vipers preach
A sermon dispossessed of words
on biting without teeth

Two lithe reptilian wrestlers
in acrobatic trance
To recompose the primal theme
from the procreating dance

They sway in mirrored unison
as heaven’s gates converge
They twist in tongues of tactile prose
and gustatory tones emerge

In this bacchanal of senses
where feelings taste of spoken sights
The serpents molt beyond their essence
onto a plane of new delights

There they share a sounding vision
muscles blink in harmony
Hissing iridescent rhythms
At last, the panting cyclopes

Reach the Art

of seeing eye to whispering eye
through the instrument of speech.

I never leave the West when it isn’t raining,*
My brother says to me through the phone.  
He is on his way back
over the Rockies and through Nebraska.
He’ll never make it intact—
hands fuse to the steering wheel
like nylons on a burn victim,
knees and elbows bolted in
precise angles keeping the car straight,
tires pulling everything forward.
One foot is the pedal, one becomes the floor mat.

Shoulder to armpit with a semi truck
hauling jet wings from Denver,
he notices the paths of rivets
like bread lines in Omaha.
Some of them are starving.

But where is the rest, the airplane body
without its wings? A hollow silo,
pilot in a cockpit
not going anywhere.  
I think airplanes molt this time of year.
It’s still raining or it will be,
the white-lined highways
will carry you here unscathed.

In rows like crumpled paper set,
The way one might design a brooch,
There sets a sparkle down so purely
Capital, beyond reproach and sure
She is the blackest flea who sits
Upon an old green dog, now should

You query, her name's a pond.  In Gaelic
It's pronounced: Baile Átha Cliath—
But in Irish she's plain, mightily named,
Dublin.  Where broods the dove, linnet
And swan.  Now take them pi'jons, they got
Dank habits and linnets lament the silent

Stones.  Sure, the goose gave out and took
To the air, but the swans, they've landed,
To roost, enchanted as 'Children of Lir,'
And so becomes a changeling child's
Fair city, for in her anointed proximity,
Gracious white birds do bathe and molt,

Supplied as I can tell, she looks black-
Pooled in clusters, long side her creases.
Stout nectar flows in near every nook
And cranny, but yer man, he's never
Busy, that malty fish, daftly avoids,
Swimming spirals round like buggies

Do on petals, he'd rather grace gardens
By drinking their dew.  O Dublin town,
She wends her ways and rows her houses
Round-a-bout on cobbled shores in tribute
To sprite, deary and fey, Anna Livia—
Who like a stem of blood, stabs right

To the heart of Dublin Bay— and proud
As a crowned thorny, who once had reeked,
She's bloomed large, into one grandeous
Beauty, like a céilí so finely fiddled—
A sandy, spirited, bombastic beach-
Flower, she is, a flag so fitting upon

The doons.  In dream, I flocked to her
Like the wild geese and saw her coy'd
Repose and there I spied, from mackerel
Skies— one monstrous, Irish rose!

Find yourself
Even in the clutter of chores
In the whistle of pressure cooker
In the clash of dishes and utensils

Search yourself
In the aroma of spices
In the color of vegetables
In the routines along the kitchen platform
In the rich gravies and the brew of juices!

Look out for yourself
In the clean mirrors
Along that fine line of kohl
In the strokes of the mascara
Over the gloss of lip shades
In that dot of bindi

Hold on to yourself
In the newness
With time, space and people
Evolve...not change!
Molt...not skin off!
Wear a new color over the base...de-color not!

Even in the dark
Can you not see thy radiant self
Glowing appraised from within!
You be your master
Look for traces of yourself
In your eye's mirror!

In rows like crumpled paper set,
The way one might design a brooch,
There sets a sparkle down so purely
Capital, beyond reproach and sure
She is the blackest flea who sits
Upon an old green dog, now should

You query, her name's a pond.  In Gaelic
It's pronounced: Baile Átha Cliath—
But in Irish she's plain, mightily named,
Dublin.  Where broods the dove, linnet
And swan.  Now take them pi'jons, they got
Dank habits and linnets lament the silent

Stones.  Sure, the goose gave out and took
To the air, but the swans, they've landed,
To roost, enchanted as 'Children of Lir,'
And so becomes a changeling child's
Fair city, for in her anointed proximity,
Gracious white birds do bathe and molt,

Supplied as I can tell, she looks black-
Pooled in clusters, long side her creases.
Stout nectar flows in near every nook
And cranny, but yer man, he's never
Busy, that malty fish, daftly avoids,
Swimming spirals round like buggies

Do on petals, he'd rather grace gardens
By drinking their dew.  O Dublin town,
She wends her ways and rows her houses
Round-a-bout on cobbled shores in tribute
To sprite, deary and fey, Anna Livia—
Who like a stem of blood, stabs right

To the heart of Dublin Bay— and proud
As a crowned thorny, who once had reeked,
She's bloomed large, into one grandeous
Beauty, like a céilí so finely fiddled—
A sandy, spirited, bombastic beach-
Flower, she is, a flag so fitting upon

The doons.  In dream, I flocked to her
Like the wild geese and saw her coy'd
Repose and there I spied, from mackerel
Skies— one monstrous, Irish rose!

One of the ways you lied was quite hard to describe
A riddle of ridicule laced with flaring shoe laces
***** nudist desires smelt of pure hash bury mayo
Feeling as if the end of the dawn would just be the beginning

To pleasure the thought of you was something I once liked to do
Now no longer
For the song bird can only sing for so long
Before their feathers molt to hear a call to move on

Move on blonde lady long legs
We are always meeting and moving on
Towards a sky which crashes silently
Quenching the thirst of many

So on a black rimmed earth a universe folds and folds and folds
Where men travel far not knowing where they go
Explore the neck of your lover to see that she has another
Each bell in the row rings as if it were the first time

Crack yourself up to hear the laughter that you hide away in your room
At first you may be surprised but the twang will not die unless
You
Will it

Night whistles through me
For I am not here
I am soon to be gone
But not to no grave

Each note guides itself upon a road that man must draw to understand
They take pride in cracking magic that laughs at our attempts
And our
Experiments

The word seemed to mean something once
People used to mean something also
Nowadays
All I see
Are comma break decimals
And funeral homes

When a soul is ready, it sheds its ghost skin, takes off
its clear feathers like a rain.  The doctors examine

and prescribe to my body, but no one says Greive
until the heart's faulty core, hung in curtains, can be rebuilt.

Nothing they give me fills the hole. Still my mind holds
every dream I had for you.  An entire house prepared.

The tiles on the floor are cold.  The hallway
of the maternity wing is fluorescent and cold.  I am afraid

nothing else will happen.  I won't die of this.  
I'll just go on walking in the numb past, missing you

sitting in the chair by the window, knees curled up,
waiting for that one bird I grew inside to release his song.

In rows like crumpled paper set,
The way one might design a brooch,
There sets a sparkle down so purely
Capital, beyond reproach and sure
She is the blackest flea who sits
Upon an old green dog, now should

You query, her name's a pond.  In Gaelic
It's pronounced: Baile Átha Cliath—
But in Irish she's plain, mightily named,
Dublin.  Where broods the dove, linnet
And swan.  Now take them pi'jons, they got
Dank habits and linnets lament the silent

Stones.  Sure, the goose gave out and took
To the air, but the swans, they've landed,
To roost, enchanted as 'Children of Lir,'
And so becomes a changeling child's
Fair city, for in her anointed proximity,
Gracious white birds do bathe and molt,

Supplied as I can tell, she looks black-
Pooled in clusters, long side her creases.
Stout nectar flows in near every nook
And cranny, but yer man, he's never
Busy, that malty fish, daftly avoids,
Swimming spirals round like buggies

Do on petals, he'd rather grace gardens
By drinking their dew.  O Dublin town,
She wends her ways and rows her houses
Round-a-bout on cobbled shores in tribute
To sprite, deary and fey, Anna Livia—
Who like a stem of blood, stabs right

To the heart of Dublin Bay— and proud
As a crowned thorny, who once had reeked,
She's bloomed large, into one grandeous
Beauty, like a céilí so finely fiddled—
A sandy, spirited, bombastic beach-
Flower, she is, a flag so fitting upon

The doons.  In dream, I flocked to her
Like the wild geese and saw her coy'd
Repose and there I spied, from mackerel
Skies— one monstrous, Irish rose!

When the silence speaks volumes
I will molt away
reborn with brilliant wings
of silken brown and gray

William raked the leaves and dry pine needles in silence, a reverence that, to him, seemed simple and appropriate in the cemetery.  Mother was close by arranging silk flowers to place on his grandparents' graves, a festive red splash of color in celebration of the Christmas season despite the unseasonal warmth and humidity in the air.

     "Can you believe the weather," he calls out to his mother.  "Grandma and Papa would have loved this."

     "Yes, they would have," she replied.  "I'm ready if you are.  We still have some errands to run before it gets too much later."

     William bent down and scooped the loose pile of nature's molt off the graves and placed it in an old plastic shopping bag.  "I'll go throw this in the trash while you set up the flowers, that way we can get moving with the day."

     Mother set to work on the bronze vase as William walked away to the trash can ten yards distant.  He was grateful for her presence, not just for the help in maintaining the graves, but also because it reinforced to him that she was the best mom he could have ever asked for.  The graves were not those of her parents, but belonged to his father's parents.  William thought it was a great show of respect for her to help him.  Father had passed a year before either of his parents.  Not that it much mattered; William's father had seemingly forgotten both William and his own parents somewhere along the way.  Father had given all his attention to his new wife for the last few years of his life.

     "All done!  Just let me pull these last few weeds before we go," Mother said.  William nodded acknowledgement and absent-mindedly wandered the surrounding grave plots.  Unknown faces of unfamiliar names blanketed the grounds nearby.  He found himself suddenly wondering if he had even visited his father's grave.  Feeling ashamed, he began searching in earnest for the site of his father's final resting place.  He thought it was close at hand, perhaps in the vicinity of the small copse of trees a few dozen yards east of his grandparents.

     After a ten minute search, William realized he could not find it on his own.  Mom will know, I will ask her, he thought.  "Hey Mom, I know this sounds weird, but I can't find Dad's grave...where is it?"

     Mother cocked her head slightly, and after a brief pause says, "Will, your father was cremated, and your stepmother told us that she spread the ashes at sea, but we can't be sure that she really did."

     "Oh.  I forgot."

.
In rows like crumpled paper set,
The way one might design a brooch,
There sets a sparkle down so purely
Capital, beyond reproach and sure
She is the blackest flea who sits
Upon an old green dog, now should

You query, her name's a pond.  In Gaelic
It's pronounced: Baile Átha Cliath—
But in Irish she's plain, mightily named,
Dublin.  Where broods the dove, linnet
And swan.  Now take them pi'jons, they got
Dank habits and linnets lament the silent

Stones.  Sure, the goose gave out and took
To the air, but the swans, they've landed,
To roost, enchanted as 'Children of Lir,'
And so becomes a changeling child's
Fair city, for in her anointed proximity,
Gracious white birds do bathe and molt,

Supplied as I can tell, she looks black-
Pooled in clusters, long side her creases.
Stout nectar flows in near every nook
And cranny, but yer man, he's never
Busy, that malty fish, daftly avoids,
Swimming spirals round like buggies

Do on petals, he'd rather grace gardens
By drinking their dew.  O Dublin town,
She wends her ways and rows her houses
Round-a-bout on cobbled shores in tribute
To sprite, deary and fey, Anna Livia—
Who like a stem of blood, stabs right

To the heart of Dublin Bay— and proud
As a crowned thorny, who once had reeked,
She's bloomed large, into one grandeous
Beauty, like a céilí so finely fiddled—
A sandy, spirited, bombastic beach-
Flower, she is, a flag so fitting upon

The doons.  In dream, I flocked to her
Like the wild geese and saw her coy'd
Repose and there I spied, from mackerel
Skies— one monstrous, Irish rose!

GUN
I can’t decide: the temple
or the mouth. In my mouth
it reminds me of holding a spoon
on my tongue, or when I  leaned pennies against
my gums. It is like licking the key to the shed, 1999.
The temple reminds me of my mother’s thumb
Pressing against circularly, circularly.
I shoot.
I wake up in front of a computer screen.
The air crashes together rippling
like a snake digests small rodents. I wake up next
to a beautiful woman. The explosion comes in
layers of jagged red and parallel yellow, like a cartoon.

PILLS
Swallow-Puke-Swallow-Can-
not-let-mybody-winthis-­one-Ilock-
-thedoor-andleave-ano-
-te-
No-one-should-come-look
-i­ng-for-me.

TRAIN
Don’t notice the figure lowering himself
onto the tracks, pausing to consider lying down
then the light comes, and I turn toward it
letting my bag slide from me. My jackets molt.
The only sound is the plank rattles of feet
running south. The only feeling is the space
between a cloud and the crack of lightning.
The birth. Light envelopes the figure.

JUMPING
I leap
far
because (Bernoulli’s Principle) not
wanting      to be ******      back
against the side of the build
ing, like examples:
      window-blinds
shower curtains.
      I realize every time
I argued(lied) airplanes were safe.
This is when (building) I hit.

CAR
I am with you,
Jenny. I couldn’t do this
without you. I hold your hand
and realize I have never touched your
skin until this moment. Neither of our hands
are cold. The fumes coming from the siphon hose
are warm. I smell the dirtbike from the time,
9 years old, I topped the hill. Beyond,
are wildflowers. I cannot remember if this
is a dream. Waking up, Jenny,
our hands are
falling apart. Jenny,
your hand has not gone limp,
but it has lifted like a jellyfish.

You know nothing* – she said,
Stepping out of the flames.
At that moment I knew
We ain't playing no games.

With desire I burned.
Her immaculate blaze –
Nothing else did I yearn.
Pure as pharos her gaze.

… And we danced, and we swerved,
Glints and flickers beside.
So august our verve
Which no woe would betide.

…In a flash she took off –
The mirage molt away,
But my sorrow paid off –
I live on for the day.

11-3-2017

I hate to say this, but I miss you
On days when I’m angry at you
I recount every memory of you
I miss you on the saddest days and even the most delightful ones

I hate to say this, but I love you
I’ve loved your fairly flaws and even resented myself for loving you
I loved you from the very beginning, I bet I’d do till the end
I love you like molt to holes
I guess, I love every curve of you

Permit me to say this, but I hate you
I hate the way you make me smile
How you get to my skin
I hate how your voice brightens up my day
I hate the ease I feel when talking to you in distress
I hate how I feel when you call me nick names
Gosh! I love them all!
I guess, I called for a white lie

I miss you as my person
I miss the fact that it was just the two of us
I hate I have to share you…
Not you, but the concept of you
I guess I hate myself more for harboring these thoughts I do
But in the end, all these conflicting emotions…
I just miss you.

@Bellah

Looking back to a summer
afternoon,
where I hid behind every table
with my back straight
and my arms held down
a forced gentle on my face,

I felt like a rattlesnake,
waiting.

I've never been tame - and
I wasn't even, then.
I've never been possessed.
     I've never been locked inside a
room in June - your hand pressing on the silver handle
with its cracks and fractures, its creaky breath rattling like tuberculosis
- your black ash streaming lungs
your history of slithering poison where neither you nor I had
legs to crawl away

The longer the days go
between then's dewy porcelain and the now, and the
shadowy sound of your breathing,
the more I simmer and smolder my snake-seethe and fume
your venom never owned me -

I molted when locked in that room.

And when I molt
you make a headdress of the selves that
have fallen from me with time.
Like you, they are colourful and cautious.

And as you carefully creep skyward,
I throw myself down in the cool grasses
of your lengthening shadow.
I was tired. It made sense to rest.

And so we played with feathers and inches
as children do.
Running in circles and circles until we fell asleep holding hands.

What were we,
but our love?

my resolve called a code and the nurse and
i need your help to stop the wailing--
give me a home and i can nurse you with
the blood under my skin. you see
i am **** and jello and your face is
such a sight for blind eyes and
please go buy flowers for me--
while they're still fresh in their graves/
when you go i'll molt my feathers and
choke on the honey you left me--
and with my red stained gloves
i'll cut your umbilical cord.
he'll be mine and i will be yours.

I

I still exist in your symmetry,
In your crystals, in your lines
There is a secret history;
A passing of marble and bronze
I leave my room and here I am,
Surrounded by the fake daylight
Memory still exists on the most
Aged asphalt and white plaster
Weighed by a sadness older than age itself
As time sags their wooden frames

Then there the fire begins
It burns with fury and rage;
My artificial paradise departs from me
As I gather what I can from ash
They remain unamended and raw
In their original, solid state
I begin to mark each line of sweat
The strands on my head now aflame;
Fiery hands remove all of me minus heart
Left with my frail bones that rattle, alone

As my spirit departs the scorched crust
I dust away at my improvised grave;
I carry myself to the edge of time
Vanished, no longer to be found.


II

The quietness after a harsh panic
Paints the ordinated New Age
There regrows the willows where
We are off to sleep;
I mix the soil with our love
It grows and grows and grows;
Their strands a brilliant green
It comes and joins me
My hair becomes the willow
Where I still hear you, asleep

There I flee to the ocean
Your memory amongst the particles of salt
The water’s ephemeral substance
Their fluidity draws me in
I am drawn in by the cool water
My skin slowly becomes blue;
My eyes replaced with worn, ancient shells
My hair a bundle of slippery kelp
I molt in the clear, wide expanse
As you consume me

And now in the darkness
You rejoin me again on the sea floor;
Again, grows the willow
The marker of our joint grave.

Paradise, 2018

After seventeen years cicadas emerge and molt from their nymph skin. They sit atop trees for six days as white as milk and trembling in excitement of the coming hunt. It is funny to think that the cicada can know exactly what they want to love in another cicada. They must love like a human has never loved. Their seventeen year anticipation is answered only by a few weeks of life. They must love passionately and infallibly. They cannot afford to take second glances on the street. They do not know what it means to take a break in order to find themselves. Their love is universal. It is built up from seventeen years of thought and dirt and roots and truth. After their skin hardens they begin to sing out in wild choruses, searching for someone who is singing their same song.