Natasha King is a Vietnamese American writer and nature enthusiast currently living in North Carolina. Her poetry has appeared in Constellate Magazine, Oyster River Pages, Okay Donkey, Ghost City Review, and others. She spends her spare time writing, prowling, and thinking about the ocean. She can be found on Twitter as @pelagic_natasha.
i shall be the thrush that strikes the snail
i shall be the thrush that
strikes the snail to split its sweetness,
i shall be the fisher that
upends the porcupine and bites the belly.
i shall wake in twilight, wake in soft light,
live when colors melt and truth is
crepuscular and malleable.
i shall sleep through the times of
absolutes. seep through the cracks of
absolutes. keep my hard edges for
the heart. let my figure blur as if
seen through tears.
i shall be the desert bat still
devouring the scorpion despite venom,
i shall be the blue sea slug that
swallows the man o’ war’s sting for later use
i shall be one speck in vast waves, one
quiet heart in hum of sand or saltwater.
i shall be glimpsed rarely, an emerald flash at dawn and
dusk, smeared on the horizon line until i
fade from memory. fade from the retina. keep my
thoughts and poisons to myself. let the
soft voices pass through me like light, let my
body forget what it was to hold and be held.
i shall lick my name
from the earth like salt,
i shall drink solace
from the tips of my human fingers.
i shall build my home where the vast world loves
the void, where half-light is a
pale and muddied grace.
i shall mark the gap where air meets marrow,
oh, and arrow fleetly, enter flesh.eat my fill and
curl so neatly, in the dark. hold
life in my jaws, my beak,
my stinging cerata. let life swallow me like the
desert, like the sea, like the sunset sinking.
