Decomposition
For 27 years and two months
I owned a y
or it owned me.
Now,
no such question inhabits my nameplate.
Gone, too, l.
I claim a w and o instead.
Did I trade a lie for woe?
I would tell you
I sneak into gardens on no-moon nights
to whisper sugar at letters decomposing
in black bins, such tender
roots turned soil.
But, no–
I hadn’t realized their absence til just now,
13 months onward.
note: "metamorphosmosis" has been formatted with an image file to maintain line break consistency on mobile devices
Reece Rowan Gritzmacher lives in a mountain town surrounded by ponderosa pines, but grew up hugging mossy trees in the Pacific Northwest. Their poetry and prose have appeared or are forthcoming on Barrelhouse, About Place Journal, Chapter House Journal, and elsewhere. They work at a public library and serve on the board of the Northern Arizona Book Festival.
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