The Clinger, Part 1

"Clingers [a taxa of benthic macroinvertebrate] attach themselves to the surfaces of substrate exposed to water movement such as rocks and streams or along wave-swept lake shores." -J.H. Thorp and A.P. Covich (eds.), Ecology and Classification of North American Freshwater Invertebrates, 2011.

The river & suspended sediments flows

with rapid velocity around me—

adapted to hang onto rocks, I’m clinging,

resilient, and resisting its violent currents.

Internal solidarity binds me to this spinning spheroid,

suspended in a sea of octopus ink.

Cling so I don’t sink, I’ve grasped and grappled for 365°,

a full revolution around the sun. My 26^th time.

At once, I’ve both fought gravity’s pull into

the cliffed craters of isolated desert death,

and allowed gravity to keep me tethered here.

Didn’t drift away or let myself burn up.

I wanted to drift away but resisted the black veil

that would poison & blind me, perhaps comfortably,

or sweep me along & tear off all my hanging phalanges

by the hungry force of ripping friction.

I’ve desperately wanted to spontaneously combust

but this Soft Soul is a solid core, self-heating,

nonreactive to outside forces,

and it won’t explode, won’t burn me up

when I beg or demand. It’s the rock I cling to

that I can’t let go of because, damn it, this is just

what I was born & adapted to do.

Written 7 November 2013