Drift

I am a guest among small swarms of winged insects
their vernacular rough against my skin.

I have left the long cursive of your body
to stroll the Miocenian grasslands, skittery

in the powdery light. One epoch is dying into another—
you can hear the buzzing against the glisten,

stars wheeling in a broken halo. Suddenly all I want
is to become aquatic, to return

to that watery place where drift is a form of propulsion,
and we little more than bell and tentacle—

votive shudders gathering in the outer precincts,
our future tiny and invertebrate.

Copyright © 2010 Gregory Mahrer All rights reserved
from Fourteen Hills
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission