Poem: Insect Artist; Or, Don’t Hold Me Down!

Illustration by EC

Maybe one day I’ll hold you like

a rare African tusk,

but the next I’ll glow over

to the canvas and make green love to it.

You mean nothing to me

without a definition. The day

after that, I’ll leave the farmer’s

market with blood in my mouth

and dead hydrangeas in my hair—

I won’t be thinking about you

lonely at my desk holding your

face in your hands with

no pearl oval gold-ringed

fingernails for that feminine comfort.

I won’t think about you—

you with no OED entry, sitting

like a copper pot saying the word

meld meld meld over and over

in your glassy blue way.

I’ll carry green jugs home

from Grandma’s, from the basement,

from Nigeria—

You’ve traveled so far to reach me!—

I’m in the sky with yellow airplanes.

Yellow canvas airplanes. Screaming

yes yes yes through the no-glass,

my hat not holding me down.