Self-Portraits as Flower Moon Opossum
When I meet a man,
I like to wait
7 years in my spathe
before blooming into
a corpse flower.
I stay open all night long
attracting whatever feeds
on dead animals or wants
to lay in me their eggs.
I kind of like the smell
I emit after a long day.
*
When the mother made
her satellite, it was a far
off mirror. Oh, how the light
filtered onto deep crevices
of cratered exterior.
*
As a child, she played possum,
pooling into the brown carpet
while making quiet hissing sounds.
She learned a lot about the military
this way. Now her body goes limp
at any perceived threat.
*
When the mudflats dry up,
when the gulls are displaced,
don’t blame the moon’s pull
for the saltwater rising.
*
You start to resurrect the self
one meditation at a time,
dye your hair green and wear
tap shoes to the grocery store.
Why can’t lighthearted feel
as authentic as pain?
Kelly Lorraine Andrews is the author of four chapbooks, most recently My Body Is a Poem I Can’t Stop Writing (Porkbelly Press) and The Fear Archives (Two of Cups Press). Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Ninth Letter, DUETDUET, Ghost Proposal, and others. She edits the online journal Pretty Owl Poetry. More information about her publications and a slideshow of her cats can be found at kellyandrewspoetry.com
