White noise static
in the background,
the talking, the talking — they talk.
They keep at it, and I am
listening but not
listening, because
I don’t have it
in me.
I think about it — what I have
in me.
I look through it, rummage and
shuffle, whistling down
into the cold dark of
it
a yawning cave, stone and wet and moss,
echoing,
only echoing
back.
Dirt under my fingers
dirt under my tongue
fire
under my skin
what of me
would survive a chrysalis?
what of me
would live
to see the new miracle?
Will my wings
rob me of my mouth?
Will my flight
rob me of the earth?
What world will I
leave behind
when I
become?
We speak of all we discover
but are told to whisper
(if at all)
of what we shed
as though the cast-off skin
that served us once
can never be touched again,
lest the miracle of remaking be
tarnished and tainted
by the memory of what made it.
The knowing burns
and drives me back;
I am the demon I guard myself against.
I surface mid-morning,
tasting stale coffee
and missed chances.
