Meditations on Flesh

An ulcer develops inside my lower lip in crevasse of gumline, the translucent milky gray pocks oral mucosa landscape of dark pink & I remember my flesh incubates; a home for short-lived tenets evolving a kind of thought come to life in the mouth— carrying the acts of membranes & cells. What haunts the body sometimes haunts from interior vantage.

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The ground squirrel in California chews on rattlesnake skin, spits out the paste to apply on its body—a confused rattlesnake smells its own deadly, hesitates at the familiar venom. I look in the mirror & think of all my jaws chew & spit out—I both predator & prey. How language thistles on my tongue, in stick to flesh laid bare: pulmonary artery in expose from lick.

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Environment changes us. In the Alden Motel, stray cats brought fleas. My ankles swollen & torn from indentations of my own nails. Dust mites caused allergic fits: stuffy nose, runny eyes, lack of smell for weeks on end. Nudibranchs change skin coloration by changing diet. Octopi camouflage their bodies when threatened. Octopi swim fast, swim fast in open ocean.

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Butterfly wings contain eyespots, circular patterns to resemble the eyes of larger animals, to confuse & misdirect with disruptive coloration. The monarch butterfly uses aposematism to ward off prey. Sometimes we hide, sometimes illuminate to keep ourselves alive. The polar bear’s physicality acts as prism; black skin under translucent fur reflects the sun to only appear white.

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In art black contains the presence of all colors. In physics & spectrum, the opposite. To understand the human condition, we must acknowledge both theories exist simultaneously & in tandem. When my mother warned, If you touch the monarch butterfly’s wings, she can never return home; she dies, my fingers already on the wing; too late to release; too early to understand the lie.

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My left knee contains asphalt from a childhood bike accident: three kids on one dirt bike & a serious hill. My brother held my chin in his palm to the top of the hill, Don’t look down. Only when I saw the blood, I cried. Only when I saw the blood, I felt the rip & sear of missing skin. Blue-green scar plumps & circles, itches when cold, itches long before the rest of my leg.

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Biochromes absorb & reflect certain wavelengths of light; octopi harbor these microscopic pigments to change color & patterns & even opacity. To be able to see inside, become more sheer. If our skin melts transparent, if our inner workings expose, blink & glow like moon jellyfish in deep ocean, would we see each other, feel our connectivity? Or sour that too?

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National Geographic tells me a rhyme for how to remember what snake patterns to be cautious of: red on yellow kills a fellow, red on black won’t hurt Jack. The lines catch & repeat in my mind. In summer 2020, a Starbucks barista asked the white woman to wear a required mask. She attacked him. His friends raised $100K on GoFundMe; the woman sued for half. Red on yellow.

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In seeing maggots on a deer carcass, my skin crawls as I watch their bodies writhe in & around each other, squirm in compost. Fly larvae, to be exact. Wikipedia says the word maggot doesn’t exist as a technical term or in entomology. Perhaps my reaction stems from misunderstanding. Perhaps the heap of bodies clangs a bell, reminds me of love; a closeness gone missing.