Today's poem is by Peter Krumbach

Migration
       

A family of five unzips me and climbs inside. I smell burlap and dust as they march up my chest. A wicker trunk dragged by the husband, the wife swerving to the tune of foreign scales. The children point at the sun of my heart, marvel at the pulse of its celadon mouths. Why not, I think to myself, let them spread their checkered cloths on my grass. Let the children pull the levers that lift my arms and tilt my head, dangle from the jungle gym of my ribs. I too had once entered a giant, crouched inside, learned the trade. I grew to dust his skull, the lens of his eye, then became his shell. So why not let these five twitch my fingers, iron my skin, make my prick the tongue of a bell? I can slowly inch away from myself, dwarf from the suit which is now theirs. Look at me slide down the pole, strut away dressed like the emperor.

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Copyright © 2024 Peter Krumbach All rights reserved
from Degrees of Romance
Elixir Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission