matt's poetry pocketbook:
poems and poets

Slug tracks

Calaya J Williams

Oh
I only wanted to see
if I could be a tree
so I sucked

'till mucous stuck, thick
between my aspirations, 'till
my skin's turning blue
and I'm speaking slug tongue

my head's so thick
I can't smell sick
or hear the secrets
secreted in our membranes

I'm making slug tracks
amazed at my apathy glaring through the
moss and rot
of my compost
I'm stumped

remembering
this is not my natural cycle
while my humors' gone up in smoke
choked

in a forest of phlegm sticks

Calaya J Williams copyright © 2000. Authors note - humors: fluids of the body, blood, phlegm, choler, and black bile, whose relative proportions were thought in ancient physiology to determine a person's disposition and general health.