Member Poem

The cell awakens,
kindling skin.
Ignites to multiply,
accommodate,
proliferate,
then slows,
begins to slough;
falls
to
dust.

Becomes vacummed,
brushed,
drowned in suds;
inhaled,
swept through global lobes,
500 million alveoli times the population;
consumed
in wholly communion.
Taken in on cosmic tongues,
we taste each other's lives without consent.

Pelt that smiled, wept, worked and slept,
made love, made hate, contained
all the jewels of existence;
freckled flakes that danced,
clapped, birthed and bruised,
were wrinkled, inked and sea-salted.
Melatonic particles within without
collective mouths:

we carry friends and enemies,
soldiers, poets, scientists,
killers, kings and commoners,
of every hue and class.

We taste this day our daily flesh
for it rebels, refuses death;
loosens to accommodate,
to multiply,
proliferate,
to slough, to float,
to fall to dust,
to be consumed,
to resurrect.