This Metamorphic Thing

This metamorphic thing

____________________

It has been

calendar sheets

peeling like petals

in the dying of days of sun.

A gasping oil spill on the lawn. A borehole drilling deep in search of water. Buried bones and uncut coal and lost things turned to dust. Howls for a missing moon. It has been a reeking trash can set alight for warmth. A snarling mess of twisted metal, shooting sparks. It has been a single thread of ruby yarn tied to my finger, beckoning to follow. It has been an endless wash of blue, a squeal of pink, a field of crimson. A serpentine squeeze at my winding throat, a lung full of bees, firefly toes. A porch light burning bright at every door. It has been a stretching silence in the snow where first I heard a rhythm underneath my ribs again.

Before all these things

it was a tambourine

shaking its confetti in the night

The fizz and pop of a carnival stand

A sprinkler on the grass in June

Spattered, peeling places it has dragged me. And the one unchanging thing has been these tiny ice capped rivers in my skin, still willing and swelling and ready to surge at the sight of you.