print previewback SALLY WEN MAO
Metamorphic Diary
Exhale—the xylem quells my lungs.
Listen: water. My incubator swings,
wired to the trees. Again the malnutritive
dawn: here is blood drawn, sap–
smeared & blue. Here is a body
or a drainage ditch. Mother hoaxed the astral
bodies: a warm nerve leashed
to warm nerve: no tenderness,
no cuticles. When I imagine
the future inching past the pines,
past redloam and podzols, my footsteps
back into a corner: a plea, pupa—
skull–net, ulnae, take me far away,
where no one could touch me,
defile me, ecdysis of love. Flesh shakes
the night apart—I am a golden bullion,
wrapped in sweat and fetal hide,
inchoate, devoid of progeny.
Human touch is so distant : : satellite.
Sometimes I ask the lake
and sometimes I ask the mountains
where the echo comes from,
the one that said come here
but lately, I’ve throttled all my questions—
lately, the armor fossilizes, rare stasis
all autumn and woman, spinulose creature
trusting solitude. Come dew, come
cells: each reverie rips, sprouting lice. 
Dirt-eating Poem
Metamorphic Diary
Myopia: A Cartography