fledgling

I first felt the metamorphosis

In the uptown taxi.

I caught a glimpse

Beneath my clipped wing—

Fresh blood glowed

With a Carnelian luster.

I was startled, and still,

There was not a wound to be seen.

Just a hue of flame-licked tangerine,

Settling like thick paint

Against my tender, shrinking waist.

Pulsating, numbness fading in and out,

Up and down, back and forth,

Between a state of reminiscence

And apathy. Is this giving in?

Is my body much more tattered

Than I could have foreseen?

I wept for the death of my clarity,

Though the slow butcher

Shared with me no sorrow.

It’s still raw somehow;

I’m still working on

Being able to cry again.

He deems it a bad sign.

But the sediment in my

Esophagus erodes every.

damn.

day.

My arteries may operate

Once more, come the current change,

Until then, my jaw is

Much less like bone

Than cement,

And my vitreous blood is

Much more like

A stern reminder

Than death.

- M. Rose