Trick or Treat

Transformation, or: Why Mommy Needs a New Pair of Black Boots

It began
with a bit of green
around my temple, a smear
edging out into the ridge
of my cheekbones,
creeping up the lip of my jutting chin.
Each evening coating my moon
face with smooth
white cream
I watched flesh-colored
pieces of me circle the drain,
disappear down its dark
winding labyrinth.

Conversations with
a murder of crows
took on new
meaning.
Daily,
I came to prefer
their raucous affirmations.
Nightly, I longed for a beak,
a dank tongue,
tail feathers.
I beat my breast
raised my arms
prayed for flight,
woke to find stiff lengths of straw
between my legs,
a nest of midnight cat hair
molded in the crook of my arm.

Costumed
so many years
as mother, wife,
plain woman, it was a relief
really, to slide into new bones.
Pure ecstasy to thrust
the soft-edges
of my hips, my elbows,
my Puritan chin,
out through the remains
of my old, used skin.
It is the balancing of pelvis

to broom handle
that has me in tatters.