Ephemeroptera
Alma Baumwoll
Fire on the water.
Heart unreformed,
reforming, remolding,
boiling under the surface film-
thick barrier to release
egg, sperm, chitin cracked,
flying away. Surface tension:
enemy of explorer and horror
of pre-smoked lakes. Return
home and die in the flat
of the water, wings re-conjoined
from whence they came
thorax the motion
of quickdead twitch above
fertile film. Return
home and die in the flat,
explored land that holds
no new sights and nobody believes.
Alma Baumwoll spent her childhood digging in the dirt for sworms, and still enjoys collecting bug spit. She writes poetry, teaches biology, and dances. Her work has been published by Arrowsmith Press, and Shakespeare’s Monkey and she contributed to the Oral History of 9/11 exhibit at the Smithsonian.
