Elemental

Water scares me most of all, the ocean 
faceless mother source of cells and 
maw of monsters waiting to reclaim. 
Do not drop my body there, to swell and 
drown, bloat white and smooth
crabs crawling from a flaccid mouth open 
under jellied eyes green mermaid hair
and dark holes home for arthropodic scuttlers. 
Give my body to the fire, the furnace
flames can carbonize this flesh to dust.
As ash return my atoms to the earth, to moss
and cedars, shady places under
mountains over streams.  There 
will water find me, mist and moisture
carry dust down nodding fernbanks to the creeks 
and then the rivers, then will I flow gently into god, that ocean.  
And what of air, fourth element
breath expiring over empty pages. Burn the paper with me
smoke will be my last breath. Fire to air to ash to earth
to mist to river to ocean finally claims me.

Rain Dance

I dress myself in cool evaporation clinging white cotton wet flower petal skirt bare feet leaving footprints that shine flash then sublimate. Droplets meandering cool trails on flesh tracing planes of my face fogging glasses and ears. Breath expiration releasing undressing reflections dot-trickle tickle long down my arm. Wisp cloud of modesty flirts and flees swift-blown a moving veil falls across a bright half-turned face. My body licked clean by the rain.

Wren Donovan’s poetry appears or is upcoming in Emerge Literary Journal, Anti-Heroin Chic, Harpy Hybrid Review, Honeyfire, Hecate Anthology, and elsewhere. Her piece Trivia placed second in Emerge’s recent prose poetry contest. She studied at Millsaps College, Chapel Hill, and Southern Mississippi. Wren lives in Tennessee and lurks on twitter @WrenDonovan.