Time Drift (Raven Barnes -Identity)

In empty pickle



And mayonnaise jars,


Then reverently eyed


What we'd got--


Ripe throbbing balls


More head than tail


Some with teeny knobs--


The promise of feet--


Circling in a dizzy


With no way to get out;






We handled the tykes


Gingerly for the most,


But now and then


We'd accidentally


Drop a few


And a small black urge


Would grip our hearts,


Seeing them twitching


And jiggling like fools;


A poke


With a pointed stick--


A test, that was all--


To find the frog


Hidden


Inside the pollywog;






A tiny pop--it was done


Breaking open


The skin


That kept the insides


In


And the outside


Out--


That strange


Dividing


Line--


We already knew--


Once you stepped


Across--


You could never


Ever come back--






Entranced we watched


As a thin


White


Spaghetti string


Uncoiled


And spilled


While the rest


Was still


Squirming and flopping


In the steaming muck--






Strange to say


We felt slightly betrayed--


In that moment


A glimmer of truth,


A wince of disgust,


And turned


Our backs


On the sickening heap


Of gelatinous guck--


Then as quickly


Recovered what we'd lost:


A bigger pool bursting


With even bigger wogs--


*






We slid into summer


Fell with the leaves


Slept through winter


Melted in spring,


The brimming creeks


Waiting there for us;


Yes, in that curve


Of newborn light,


Despite the pulling


Inside our limbs,


We let go as much as we held


In those perfect transparent


Days of forgetting


And finding ourselves.


*






I stood there remembering


The tangle of thistle


The milkweed, the chickory,


The sunny buttercup,


the whirl, the buzzing


The throb,


The eternal leaping frogs--






All chewed up--






All choked under--






Tons of gravel--






A field of asphalt






Now smothered the earth


Where once


Time had filled our lungs.






It wasn't these changes


That were so unsettling


I haggled with myself,






But






The steady unwinding--






The unstoppable






Backward






Drift.