"Upcycle" and "Foresight"

By M. Stone

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Upcycle

​Pick one of these past selves— 
one reeking with terror, still huddled
on her mother’s floor— 
and create a bridge of it
 
to replace that wooden skeleton
washed away in the May flood.
Stretch the skin and tendons,
extend the vertebrae
 
while twenty feet below,
the creek spills over stones
as water past the lip of a pitcher
 
and a persimmon sunset
bathes blanched bones,
waking marrow and making it sing.

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Foresight
​
My good friends wedded young,
their empire-waist dresses hiding
second-trimester pregnancies.
 
I dodged every bouquet
the brides threw.
 
At nineteen, I knew:
only those who birthed and raised me
could bear my anxious tics,
my washing rituals.
 
In a marriage,
I would be the strangling vine.

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M. Stone is a bookworm, birdwatcher, and stargazer who writes poetry while living in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in San Pedro River Review, SOFTBLOW, Calamus Journal, and numerous other print and online journals. She can be reached at writermstone.wordpress.com.