Lesley Wheeler
For Metamorphosis, with Bibliomancy
WITH A LINE FROM NIGHTINGALE BY PAISLEY REKDAL
This is the season for transmutation. Change
began some time ago: electrical storms,
dreams grinding slow like brass gears. An icebox
sighs; you’re grateful. Around each bruise, each sign
inscribed in purple and teal, a halo forms.
You rattle dice and roll seventeen. What
could that mean—almost woman and certainly
prey? Rattle the news but your horoscope is blank.
Rattle a song and a person falls out, a fleshy
hag in linen pants, near enough you catch
her stink. The woman stands, straightens, and you
see her mouth thin to a not unpleasant line…
Well, you wanted monstrousness. Leathery
rind unwinding. This is the season for transmutation.
Lesley Wheeler’s newest books are The State She’s In, her fifth poetry collection, and Unbecoming, her first novel. Recent work appears or is forthcoming in Massachusetts Review, The Common, Ecotone, Gettysburg Review, and other journals. Poetry editor of Shenandoah, she lives in Virginia and blogs about poetry at lesleywheeler.org.