the winter eats my spirit. in january and february i am no more than a walnut shell missing its tumor of a brain, than lake michigan when the ice coats the edges, crispy and slick so no one can hear the slopping, rippling center, like old alarm clocks that refuse to surrender their tickings, but ring at all the wrong hours, like fish stuck staring sideways and snapping their necks just trying to look ahead. i am stamps too dry to be licked.
i am a barnacle shivering against the hull of an alaskan crabbing boat, bleary eyed and iron. i am soccer's slow dive that no one stands up after. there is no after. the little girl who stays inside for fear of geese and lumps. the poppy that drops its petals the moment it is plucked. the writing on the ear canal wall, the cabinet with the lost key. a growing stalagmite, trapped in a saran-wrap uterus.
but only until april.
things are growing. we all donated a piece, then came the zygote. cells are tearing themselves to shreds, and their death is making this new thing. they invade relentlessly,
fetus.
fetus of spring, i look through your translucent skin to a lavender mind. it ticks with the seconds. you dream of the opera, when mimi dies and it is may's birthday. the day when westerns are written and sisters visit and the ducks come home.
