Her posture marked her out as an authority,
clinging to the coast in a chain of tree-bound
buoys, cylinder-shaped lanterns: drawing small
creatures to her body. In her spiked religious
hat, she was dignified, even as her limbs
exploded with buds, and she put out her shingle
(as she knew she must), there was never an idea
of existing for herself. A procession of strangers
with beak, fang, claw – sometimes wings,
sometimes fur, falling upon her suddenly,
heavily in the dead of the night. How exhausting,
to be a source of desire: grow wooden on the
stalk, to wear a death mask of quaint mouths
and eye-holes. It took a dry season for her
to crack open, let go of her inheritance:
maternal instinct holding out, much longer
than she thought possible.