Chrysalis 

Dun slipper,

sealed.

It does

not want

or need

to be seen.

One gold seam.

Silence

teeming, unbodied,

unwinged, almost

stilled (but someone

is hanging

matter from here

to there) – imaginal

discs, queasily

crushed with

one pinched

thought;

each

imago

feeling

unto

air –

build me a nest of my mother’s & sisters’ & daughter’s hair

I gathered hair from brushes &
my daughter’s too, her blonder strands.
She does not know.

I was furtive, almost shamed
to be a bird, teasing matter,
my palm a nest

against the wind, the old
dark about us. The hair when bound
with wish grew birled.

I could rest then,
    budded, keening.
What does it mean

to curve toward a new shape,
    not feathered but furred –
each body in a branching tree

of patterned leafy days,
    small breastbone lowered over us –
warmth, longevity.