children suspended in chrysalises
fabricated from flowing water
spin slowly in a cave bisected by a river
a god’s low whistle chiseled
in the ancient gift of earth. Every snake
is an ouroboros, insensate, with scales
bright as mirrors. Every mirror is a convex
sphere. Every scale I finger on the piano
returns to me, from the other, in the shape of
a memory suspended in a cocoon.
A fledgling bird, slicing earth like paper,
emerging from ground under ground.
*
Water unsettled is the shifting
shadow of something too big to love
easily. Riverwater revels uphill.
Plum sky overripens. Birds flee.
A boneless song passes the spray & dissolves.
Releases like an air-leak’s icy hiss.
*
The view from inside of the whistle is the sensation of
things falling apart. The view from inside of the piano
is the sensation of being beaten by solid drops of rain.
The view from inside the chrysalis is darkness. The view
from within the children is the sensation of squinting
in the darkness at something no longer possible to see.