The turtle sheds his shell
and smashes it upon the rocks.
While I, a hobbled ape,
cough up my skeleton
like jumbled driftwood.
…..Quivering like jellyfish,
…..we seem surprised that we
…..cannot walk away.
So we painfully gather
our fragments
and try to reassemble
ourselves upon the sand.
…..The turtle locks
…..his shell together
…..like a jigsaw puzzle.
…..I snap bones
…..together
…..like Legos.
And in our tragic
and flawed reconstruction
we stumble together
into the moon-
washed sea.
Wess Mongo Jolley (he/him) is a Canadian novelist and poet, most well-known for hosting the IndieFeed Performance Poetry Channel for ten years. His horror trilogy, The Last Handful of Clover, is available on Patreon, Wattpad, QSaltLake, and as an audiobook podcast. Mongo writes from Montreal, Quebec. Find him at http://wessmongojolley.com.
