Reinitiation

by Riam Griswold

As usual, you wake

shaking

as the amber sun begins

to overflow and all your insects

turn their eyes toward you,

still/already gnawing

your foundations

and you’ve shut tight all your windows

without breaking them (their clarity

a barrier) but light

outside has broken

you so surgically

and pesticide, et cetera,

has done its dirty work.

Brittle wings still pleat the air

while you are poisoned.

You listen to the thrumming

(exoskeletal) (industrious)

of your demolition,

hear the rhythm of the dance

that they won’t teach you—

jitterbug in synchrony

with your convulsive shudders—

and know all at once that it’s a celebration.

see what we have. see what we’ve done.

To feast is to survive and to survive

another moment is a victory and you

are here, awake and shaking in the morning

radiation, rich with raw material and electric

information, desperate, trying

cell by cell to love your life

as insects do,

minutely, thoroughly,

stubbornly,

one morsel at a time.

BIO: Riam Griswold Riam Griswold is an editor and writer of fiction and poetry. Their writing has been published in journals and anthologies including Soundings East, Audience Askew, Querencia Press’s quarterly anthology, F3ll Magazine, Jet Fuel Review, Coffin Bell Journal, Levee Magazine, Red Rock Review, Write Launch, and Book XI. You can find them at riamgriswold.wordpress.com.