Merie Kirby
HOW MUCH OF ME
Sometimes I feel like a moth in a web, a cricket
in a beak, struggling against circumstances,
blank-faced forces with no interest in my story.
How much of me is rabbit, and how much bear?
The part that trembles, the part with teeth.
A feral animal in a black cardigan, gathering her family
under cover while a bomb cyclone pulls
water from the ocean and hurls it hard at the land.
I’m a child’s flipbook creation, incongruous parts
aligning at joints, at waist and neck.
Mostly the hybrid monster just thinks of herself
as herself, as one thing, not many parts. A new chimera
in search of a tale where she isn’t beheaded,
where no treasure will be gouged from her chest.
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