Self Portrait as Silkworm
KIMBERLY GIBSON-TRAN
I unzipped my cocoon and a horizon
unspooled—after last night’s torrent
a mirror eclipsed
the blacktop for miles
cast back sky
Don’t tear
Write it down—see if you can
out a parable
My bike wheel
reels in the mountains
Spoke spoke
an invisible dial
a wake in the spun water
~
The moths are boiled alive
in their chrysalises—fattened
first on mulberry leaves the crooked worms
doze and thicken in luminous
pillows of spittle
Let them birth
and the raw silk rends—ruins
all the worth of a string unglued
that can run
the length of three ballfields
In a clay cauldron
the little yellow eggs under heat
release hairs—wind upwards
Hot rain
reverses into lightning
Ghosts in the black water
~
It rained again
the sky a grumble of pain
I dismount and take cover under a cluster of trees
Wax hands brush my head
So warm
they say
clots of berries
across grass scattered baskets
of an abandoned silk farm—dark mold
and water—spun shells split
Once you were born your face
red fruit
leeched in a newer making
~
The next step is bleach—
a million strands stripped to take stain
royal blue
vermilion
wound to the skein
Not far from skin
and how much closer to beauty
~
Rows of women in wooden ships
pedal into rainbow
into planes of rainbow
shuttle back and forth
Touch and go
Dimensions sheer and collapse
in the rhythm of their kicking
At day’s end a few more inches
to cover the body
I thought I might be writing a rebirth—though now
I don’t know
If I can handle the waking
KIMBERLY GIBSON-TRAN holds two degrees in linguistics. Her recent writings appear in Creation Magazine, The Windhover, Rowayat, Jelly Squid, Saranac Review, Paper Dragon, Dunes Review, RockPaperPoem, Anodyne Magazine, Elysium Review, and The Common Language Project. Raised by medical missionaries in Thailand, she now lives in Princeton, Texas.
