Jane Berg
Exoskeleton
I know it is hard to fathom.
How what has happened, ever happened.
We invented for our skins these
hard shelled exoskeletons.
And though you miss those summers
spent hiding your belly from the sun.
Heat melting the cliffs like honeycomb.
The noise of it; ecstatic cicadas at dusk,
hornets, spiders, patterned scales
venomous to pierce-able flesh.
You will never go there again,
now there is more than the underside
of our limbs to protect. Only in a myth
do two people live naked.
Jane Berg is a writer and photographer. She recently graduated with an MFA in creative writing from San José State University where she served as the managing editor of Reed Magazine. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in deLuge Journal, Flint Hills Review, Months to Years, Superstition Review, and elsewhere. She lives near San Francisco, CA.