Fourth Annual Wild Violet Writing Contest Winners (2006)
Poetry
— First Place
Mea
Culpa
A Crown of Sonnets
By Judith Goldhaber
(continued)
v.
My heart exploded and I dangled free —
legs wildly groping for a twig or vine
to grasp, proboscis sniffing for a sign
of others in this jungle just like me
with whom I might begin a family.
All the new organs seemed to work just fine
except for those ridiculous opaline
appendages still crumpled uselessly
behind my back. What are they for? No doubt
they had a purpose, but it wasn’t clear —
heavy and wet they drooped down in the rear —
hardly a thing you’d want to wave about.
From where I clung, suspended upside down,
it seemed the earth was blue, the sky was brown.vi.
With earth above and, far below me, blue,
I clung for hours, trying to decide
which way to go, alone and terrified.
A larva would have known just what to do —
worms always seek a hole to crawl into,
and dark earth offers lots of room to hide;
but something in my reborn self defied
that timid voice, and dreamed of something new.
By now the sticky laminate, the glue
that coated the appendages had dried;
my body now felt stiff and calcified
but somehow more assured than hitherto.
The sun rose through the treetops; time went by,
I spread my wings and fell into the sky.
