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By Laura Hamblin

I take my lizard skin in mouth,  
that which was moist,  
now transparent and dry.  
It once enclosed my being 
held me together.  
But it does no longer.  
I do not shed it to discard it.  
Rather, I retire to a solitude.  
Here, under stone,  
I eat my veins and scales,  
making internal the external.  
Listen softly--
behind the hum of cicadas  
you can hear the epidermis tear  
and my newborn-self scream.  

Laura Hamblin