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Spring

Paula Bohince

February 17, 2011

Larvae harden into adults, into the complexity of distinct anatomy— windowed wings, legs like stitches—tossing off the sodden blanket of the soft body,   their innocence lisping over the pig, oomphs and fizzes forming a transcript of triumphs, but what does it mean to win, out here?   Spring’s raffle: who will live, who’ll become distressed and wish for a place to climb in.   I’m watching the air fill with the born-again, resting on the corpse of the rotted oak. Tomorrow I’ll drag it, chain-sawed to thick tablets, into the woods.   No tragedy to watch it go. The insects have broken from that burrow into warm air. Snow has melted from bark and pooled. With nowhere to turn.

Paula BohincePaula Bohince is the author of The Children (2012) and Incident at the Edge of Bayonet Woods (2008). Photo: Patrick Mullen


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