Arsenic Lobster poetry journal
Issue Eighteen
Winter 2008
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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

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