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Poetry

Earthworks 301

By October 30, 2014 No Comments

Such dubious tutors:
the upwardly mobile drone
whose instinct sinks his career
with a single sting;
the flim-flam deer tick, upended,
six legs waving, with two new ones,
nose hair thin and due to emerge before
she self-destructs from Siphon Arrest;
and, out-slumming all comers, the fly wannabe,
that inveterate pond bum and bottom crawler, the caddis worm,
sheathed with twiglets and crumbs of stone,
bits of rotted sedge, an earring back,
a long-gone snail’s bivalve casket.
As it was in the beginning,
always the sharp hunger of fear,
then the eating, the hiding.

Note to self: when the test comes around
again, brave communion:
sip the juice,
nibble the Host nicely, and live
to claim, at last, summer’s wings.

Laurie Klein

Laurie Klein

Laurie Klein is the author of Where the Sky Opens and Bodies of Water, Bodies of Flesh. A winner of the Thomas Merton poetry prize and Pushcart nominee, her work has appeared in The Christian Century, Presence, Ruminate, St. Katherine Review, Relief, ATR, and elsewhere. She lives in the Pacific Northwest and blogs monthly at lauriekleinscribe.com.