The swell of my heart is a pale fragility
passing for life found quiet
beneath a gently nestled river stone.
Accompanied by my subterranean neighbors
infected with less than aesthetic features:
spineless, many-legged, permeable skin.
Lowly inhabitants to keep
my lonely heart company.

How dare she lift that stone,
so perfectly were we
in the mud and wet earth,
I, my heart, the worms, and the dirt.

She, bringing sunshine and oxygen
making my woodlice friends scramble for cover.
And me, stumbling blindsided by her light,
with an idiot’s stare,
too ignorant to follow my friends,
too dumb to know when to run.
Baffled by her strange glow.