Endings
Hester J. Rook
There is
a spiderweb crack
ing down my arm
spurting wires like roots bursting
from the soil like trails of willows
weeping
banners of leaves swooping in the breeze.
I am slow now, my limbs stiff or detached or detangled or
loose
swinging parabolic from my sockets.
They tried to repair me three times this year
shook their heads, tongues clacking like birds.
I’m not sure they know I recognise their noises,
understand their movements.
They do not understand mine.
I hum low like the earth, harmonising with a world punctuated with the drumbeat
syncopation of
all their hearts.
When they dismantle me I do not know if I will vanish or grow stretched
my conscious threading through my parts as they are repurposed and reused and recycled
expanding
into a thousand new and useful things:
a filament of light;
the fragile shell of a submarine, sunk under the weight of ocean.
I do not know whether
I will die
or grow to embrace the whole world.
They are coming now.
Perhaps a part of me will go to space
and I will feel the warmth of a thousand stars.
Perhaps I will kiss the moon.
Hester J. Rook is a Rhysling Award nominated poet and co-editor of Twisted Moon Magazine. She’s on Twitter @kitemonster and her other publications can be found on her site. You can best find her salt-scrunched on beaches, reading arcane tales and losing the moon in her tea.