Wetlands in Five Acts

Published 2022 in Re:Visions.

I.

i am weaving my own bridal wreath but the thorns poke prick and i bleed green around my wedding ring onto my wedding ring feeling concentric but mostly feeling punctured like a mossy balloon that deflates slowly and with a hiss that is more of steam than anything perhaps a gentle geyser but one squeezed by unskilled hands harvesting fluorite from the shells of the guilt-snails but only getting their slime.

II.

the snake that grows and recedes into itself, and eats itself in a circle, and spirals at the rate of a Ferris wheel, and cycles until interior is exterior is within is without, the klein bottle snake, the mobius snake, when rain falls it falls in circles, the drip drip drip drip of ambiguous liquid hidden by drumroll thunder, a twisting crown among leaves with fractal veins, guilt is fractal, it branches the way it has already branched, it patterns the way it has already patterned, there is no beginning or end, anything can be a gutter, anything can be a rain barrel, anything can be a stagnant pool for mosquito larvae, anything can be a war trench, and when the writhing mass writhes itself into humid air, the leaf remains, a small boat gaining a river.

III.

All the world’s a blurry Bigfoot photo; all the snakes and slugs mere stains on the jeans of time; all the vegetables in the garden a happy accident of evolution; all the verdant crystals mere vehicles for hazy rays of light to deflect themselves through the rough-hewn keyholes of trees; and I a silent smile on the face of someone I cannot see.

IV.

I am weaving my own ankle monitor but I can’t do it fast enough; the crochet needle and the knitting needle and the harpoon needle and the narwhal needle and the embroidery needle and the sewing needle and the doctor’s needle are threaded with scales on scales on scales on scales on slime; a snail is just a snake whose coils are housed, a brussels sprout is just a snail with spherical symmetry, fractal symmetry, needlepoint symmetry, woven symmetry; I am weaving my own ankle monitor but its muscles contract and squeeze me too tight and strangle me but not in a place where it matters to strangle and we are muscle on muscle and scales on scales and slime on slime; a crystal is just a petrified snail; a leaf is just a hydrated shell; an ankle snake is just a bracelet with eyes.

V.

there is hunger between your toes. 
there is lightning between the cabbages in your garden.
there is guilt between the cracks of your geode.
there is moss between the keyholes of your forest.
there are mosquito larvae between your wedding rings.
there is growth between your gravestones.
there is symmetry between your puddles.
there are fractals between your toadstools.