twist
by Christine A. MacKenzie
threads of green-gold moss prickling through
tiny holes
across the length of cream-cold arms, fingers, while sleeping,
and sleeping, walking bare-legged into the frost crisp, frost
flowers, stems snapped under toes as cut hairs; walking past
the hulking bodies of dread,
of wrath, their trickling stream feeding
moss patches, and a fawn, sipping; and the bullfrog warming itself
in the sun has dried, and twisted to the toe-buds –
says the baby wearing a soiled diaper, dirty;
says the girl twisting her soiled hair, ugly;
says the woman sponging her soiled body, disgusting;
who taught you that holding hatred towards the body, for having a body,
would remove hatred towards yourself?
who taught you that holding hatred towards the child, for being a child,
would remove hatred towards yourself?
twisted into a tree with tiny, green-gold apples
hard as knots: the child thinking
of wintertime, thinking of the dead field mouse buried in the old tree hole,
and the green-gold apples, and soft leaves, lain with it; thinking of the ghost mouse
chewing endlessly,
fattening blissfully, under its green blanket –
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