Arsenic Lobster
poetry journal |
Issue Eighteen Winter 2008 |
Cocoon Brian McMillan 1 Caterpillars descend from the heart of the tree on silk to a new world where a boy peels a cactus pear, watching. He leans to the tree, the edge of recess, as voices of blond girls ricochet off a silver slide through the leaves. 2 Given weeks, he will begin to unpack the wreck and rhythm, the id of childhood, and he will forget about the caterpillars. 3 End on end, they glut bark grooves, swell, harden, and hang—then emerge, brown wings like gravy skin, the immigrant boy mocked by monarchs in the playground for having no father. |
About Brian McMillan |