Tiny footsteps crash
upon the ceiling.
You hit them with your fist,
eyes charged through
with green,
but too hard –
and all the trees come down
with a bang.
I don’t like when I can smell
the others’ meat through the walls.
Lying on the carpet with your nose
pressed to the fibers
you say it’s only lava
coming in through the cracks,
but I can tell the difference
when it’s mixing with ours.
Outside, the fronds are unfurling.
They stayed tight and brown
all through the cold,
we thought they might stay
like that forever.
They uncoiled themselves
first by their spines, then laterally,
one after the next
so fast we barely kept up.
A kākā came in off the wind
when you opened the door,
piercing your back.
You itched and itched,
pushing your back against
the groove in the headboard.
This morning, buds appeared
under your skin,
small white beads as hard as nuts.
I am afraid to touch them,
afraid I’ll crush them up
like coriander
in the mortar and pestle
or snail’s shells
under my shoes in the night.
Carolyn DeCarlo has written two chapbooks, Strawberry Hill (Pangur Ban Party 2013) and Green Place (Enjoy Occasional Journal 2015), and co-authored Twilight Zone (NAP 2013) and Bound: An Ode to Falling in Love (Compound Press 2014), with Jackson Nieuwland. Recent writing has appeared in or is forthcoming from Deluge, PANK, Inferior Planets, West Wind Review, Turbine, and Sweet Mammalian.
