My reptile mother birthed a reptile daughter –
cold-blooded, always chasing sunlight.
The weather turns a screw in a fractured femur,
and wrenches me rheumatic with the foresight
of frost glazing bromegrass mint in pale morning,
a marrowdeep brumation congealing in the blood.
It came for me in the crib, bit me like an adder
and left me with a puncture like a pocket
I could pour into. The dark place.
If I’m sliced open, what spills out of me?
Fog. The entire month of October. The fang
and the flower. A light bulb devoured whole.
It’s not enough. How could it be, if I didn’t
even have to unhinge my jaw to swallow?
Trinity Herr grew up communing with elk and apple trees in rural Oregon. A poet and storyteller, her writing has previously been published in CALYX, Hobart, High Desert Journal, and Barren Magazine among others.