The Molt

Re-Size Text: A A A A Comment

RSS blog print

Midge Goldberg

The Molt

 

      I am not the creature but the shell.
      I am not hiding but the space to hide,
      the sturdy walls around a place to dwell.

      At first my structure is a citadel—
      the creature’s safest when it stays inside.
      I am not the creature but the shell,

      yet as the creature grows, its needs compel
      a sloughing off—my flaws are magnified.
      My sturdy walls surround a place to dwell

      but trapped inside this small a space is hell.
      The creature leaves. The shell’s unoccupied.
      I am not the creature but the shell,

      useless as when the clapper leaves the bell,
      water the well. With nothing to provide,
      my walls surround an empty place. I dwell

      on whorling echoes, of nothing left to tell,
      of no one left who ever laughed or cried.
      I am not the creature but the shell,
      the sturdy walls around a place to dwell.