Kintsukuroi (Self-Portrait)
Once I accidentally dug up half a nymph cicada
Burrowed underneath a damp fir
Its abdomen oozed milkweed sap the color of beryl
And another time I watched one
Emerge nascent from its shell clinging to
The bark of a towering larch
Its wings the unreal color of mint, of aquamarine
Like the milk inside its middle was spun
From the petiole into its veins: lattice-woven, lichen-fingered
And burgeoning right before my eyes.
Its new abdomen was flecked with an
Exact facsimile of gold dust, the same
Unreal color that, pointillist, crowns
The circumference of the trembling monarch chrysalis,
Which hangs like a varnished eggshell, polished jade,
Quivering from an apple twig by gossamer threads.
But some transformations are more like the
Molting of a spider, who hides
In corners to peel off its skin; wriggling out
Back into the light simply a
Larger version of itself
MariJean is an ex-evangelical, decolonizing writer residing in the Midwest with her two daughters. She can be found on Instagram @regressada.
