Poetry

Chrysalides
2003 Pushcart Prize Nominee

by
Marianne Wade

 

I mustn't poke a foot or knuckle

through any narrow crevice

or complain about inadequacy,

        alteration or time;

I brought shadows with me

and they flex their skinny arms

filling up the extra edges

with the fear of being new.

 

I remember a drip of water

how it pinged against a bucket

and the clicking of the beetle

that hurried me to change.

 

    I am here inside the longest tube

    here inside the finer lines,

    I am here beside a mirror

    with no image looking back.

 

Someone whispers from the garden

about the higher branches,

promises me milkweed

    and all the speckled air.

I only need to battle

the lure of expectation,

and not take too deep a breath

before the beat of wings.

 

Marianne Wade is a poet, teacher, San Francisco bay area native, and tarot reader.  Her work has appeared in Samsara Quarterly, Baker Street Irregular, Ionization, and The Writer's Hood.  She looks forward to Fall 2003 when her poem "Augury" will appear in The Pagans' Muse: Poems of Wisdom and Inspiration, an anthology edited by Jane Raeburn.  Marianne currently lives in Michigan with her family.