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Planaria
Over pie, Len talks about worms. Dice them,
he says, and each regrows its missing parts!
His eyes glow under tangled brows, entranced
by immortality. I picture eyeless
mouths groping for their eyes and mouthless eyes
their mouths. Hungry for their hunger, old
in need of new. We’re old, our gray hair wild
and worried as brambles clinging to a cliff.
The question is where to look. He looks for doors
from body into bliss or second chances—dicing
as self-renewal? recycling as lizard or crow?
Anything to start again. I fork a peach wedge
on my plate. Sweet in my mouth the slice,
the talk with friends.
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About the Author: Ruth Hoberman mainly lives in Chicago. She writes poetry and essays, which have been published in such places as RHINO, Calyx, Smartish Pace, Naugatuck River Review, and Ploughshares.
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Image Credit: Image from The Great Barrier Reef of Australia;. London :W.H. Allen,[1893]. Courtesy of The Biodiversity Heritage Library
As It Ought To Be 