b a r b a r a  f l e t c h e r: other poems


Earthborne

Fingerprints and filaments of hair inhabit
the surface of browned epidermis. My earth
is populated by pores that weather the pummel of rain
and crack under fierceness of orange sun.
Sedimentary skin, formed from the dust of disintegrating rock,
covers layers and layers of geological tissue.
The mantle of my blood separates crust from core, flows
between the silence of indigenous skin and organs
playing primordial chords to the heart's percussion.
Rhythmic and ritual, the pulse familiar as my own vernacular.

New words lie dormant and unwritten within me,
under the surface, enclosed in pliable and transparent cells;
they wait for the inevitable divisions. They will split,
form endless dichotomies, will propagate, create narrative.
My words become organs and skin, mantle and earth,
fingerprints and filaments of hair.