Elasticity

Shareen K. Murayama

photo credit: Shareen K. Murayama

Half of me wants to perch on                         the church’s patina and press
flowers, dry beauty                             is all make-believe dogma.                  

I’ve once held the word god               its spindle-shape is
tapered at both ends.                         Today I feel like the blue sky                         

divided by blue ocean                         like how my mother and I are horses
on a Chinese calendar;                                   we are two-dimensional women

to bet on, women at war                    only one of us falling 
failing to feel your betrayal.               At times I want to return to you                    

my foraging location is the space       between the eyes and nostrils          
of a snake. Some call it a lore.                        I want to communicate my ownership         

of a leaf making them less                  dangerous. You and I know it’s
making us and others safer                for them, which hardens the skin.

Like gravity and the sun,                     we get burned loving what we love.

Shareen K. Murayama lives in Honolulu, Hawaii. She has degrees in English from the University of Hawaii and Creative Writing from Oregon State University. Her art has been published or is forthcoming in The West Review, 433 Magazine, Ghostheart Lit., Crab Fat, Prometheus Dreaming, Inter|rupture & Phoebe. You can find her on IG & Twitter @ambusypoeming.