Member Poem

I have been making kites from paper
bending them over my head,

like rain-evaders from wetting the roots
from where tresses have begun to weaken,

I have folded delicate litmus in fours
only to smoothen back to open squares,

writing un-abidingly of flight: white ink
on wings of birds of homes in groves.

I have been reviving the days of skin
holding it together over a blank slate,

like a soul given a new house atop a hill
where grass cannot be chewed;

you will find decomposition here
in the layers between independence

and aloneness – I have marked them out
as wrinkles –

as the initiator that first tasted the apple
instead, growing a tree where seeds fell

from my mouth that bore more apples
man ate to stay alive.

First published in Section 8 Magazine