Shifting
I belong in beast skin
coarse as bristles rasped by rough tongue
down the heavy certainty of me.
I should lope or lounge
in the comfortable curve of haunch
in the deep steadiness of limbs equilateral,
but my claws are torn from me.
With pale half-moons on soft tentacles
I cannot catch even the memory of prey.
My limbs are spindled and broken
bending stiffly in strange places.
I am lost to myself. I cannot rest.
Half my head is gone
my jaws an aching phantom
on the flat blank that remains of my face.
I am truncated. Cut off.
Stretched to dizzying height, and twisted
to alien template.
I am not wise enough to know
why my shape is not my shape.
I only know that it is not.
There is no glory in this, and no pride
only the deep discomfort of not knowing
and not being.
I will make what I can of my hands.
I will take the gift of fire
and walk upright at times.
But only at times. The going is hard
and the ground is strange. So when I can
I will be a beast.
coarse as bristles rasped by rough tongue
down the heavy certainty of me.
I should lope or lounge
in the comfortable curve of haunch
in the deep steadiness of limbs equilateral,
but my claws are torn from me.
With pale half-moons on soft tentacles
I cannot catch even the memory of prey.
My limbs are spindled and broken
bending stiffly in strange places.
I am lost to myself. I cannot rest.
Half my head is gone
my jaws an aching phantom
on the flat blank that remains of my face.
I am truncated. Cut off.
Stretched to dizzying height, and twisted
to alien template.
I am not wise enough to know
why my shape is not my shape.
I only know that it is not.
There is no glory in this, and no pride
only the deep discomfort of not knowing
and not being.
I will make what I can of my hands.
I will take the gift of fire
and walk upright at times.
But only at times. The going is hard
and the ground is strange. So when I can
I will be a beast.