EDGE OF DISMANTLING /// Bonnie Larson Staiger

EDGE OF DISMANTLING

/// Bonnie Larson Staiger

“…to see if I would go or change into something else.” Galway Kinnell, “The Gray Heron”

In a stroke of evolutionary voodoo like casting off false selves who bear no resemblance to you Parodies in ill-fitting regalia you have been loath to abandon The sky slides into inked water a murky sludge reaches up from the aquifer to transform you an ancient throwback a lizard in leathered skin basks in the heat of the day as though awakened from shedding the past Now wears an avian costume a heron feathered in a charcoal coat appears like sweetgrass arcs along a lazy lake You move on eyes blink at the speed of eons Reedy legs high-step lapping water