Metamorphosis Sonnet
Kenton K. Yee
Because you stole to sell it. Because you got
caught and rationalized it. Because you can’t
get up. Ice, you screamed and dedicated yourself
to gray energy and matter. The body becomes
a skein of veins. Fleas come, a shell hardens
over it. You wake up face down, stick your head
out, crawl into a neon forest. You’re late, it’s late,
she’s late, but you queue for latte, post emojis,
quaff, and clip your claws. Outside, you drop
them into a kettle, direct a pomelo to a nearby
melon stand, nibble twigs off bonsai plants.
It’s not heavy nor stuffy but you want to ditch
your shell. Because we all want tentacles. We
all want to tangle. We all want to crack a crab.
Kenton K. Yee’s recent poems appear (or will soon) in Kenyon Review, Threepenny Review, Cincinnati Review, RHINO, Parentheses, Scientific American, Constellations: A Journal of Poetry and Fiction, Fairy Tale Review, Arc Poetry Magazine, Terrain.org, JAMA, and Rattle, among others. Kenton writes from Northern California. INSTA: @kentonkyeepoet FB: @scrambled.k.eggs
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