written By
There will be some pain.
For me, a demon in the lower spine,
a jab and a pinch, the body’s prophecy.
My grandmother has needles in her hands,
and I’m not surprised.
Most of her life has been scissors and thread.
There will be a change in the light,
a body rushing between the sun and home.
A giant bird, perhaps, a cryptid, maybe.
I have come to the age where I feel the blur of seasons,
that indefinite sway of sadness and otherwise.
A certain weight in the atmosphere
pushes down upon my roof and makes these walls
creak and moan, an ocean of pressure
begging to be let in. But I will not let it in.
My sister’s knees, my mother’s teeth, my father’s heart—
all of us have our warnings. Even my lover complains
about the weather. My grandmother says I must learn
the song of the rain crow,
turn my back to the wind, like leaves. She says
I must never look into the eyes of the monster
that drags thunder on its wings,
for I would surely live with lightning,
a demon that dances up and down the spine.
