Change Hunger

Once upon a life I

arrived unclothed, to be

girded and swathed, cleaned

and pressed into servitude, 

meeting need & wish & whim

of the goggler in the glass:

one who all life long

yearned for a new reflection.

Following sires and siblings, I

wore handmedowns & hashtags,

hovering, wondering who and why,

and whither I ought to fly away--

land of never, planet past forever,

city with a skin-suited savior,

spired sanctuary chancel of song,

or a celebrated penman’s paradise?

But mirrors blur and darken

with the nodding and the waking,

and the plodding and the quaking fears

that heaven is but a phantom,

or piety just a pantomime performed

for force uncaring by poor devils daring

to face a shattered lookingglass

with pointless, mindless courage.

Though doubting, I am hoping

that transformation might be mined

in the lively tomb of neglected scrolls

where chiefs and kings were made

to morph from the curse of their births,

into chrysalis-breaking immortals,

by washing the feet of the lowly ones who

like me, are all longing for change.

MNA

7/19/2020