To be a chameleon helped out of its egg by God

Fig. 1

 Girlhoods die side-by-side in a Bed
Big enough to hold amnion and Chorion
Soft leather shells pulled up to Necks
Pooled like sheets at our Waists

 I saw you through pinkish Membrane
Like sunlight behind soft closed Lids
Stirred from thin finger to shaking Spine
Knocking gentle on our calcified Wall

Fig. 2

 I shared a bed with a girl once before I didn’t sleep on her floor or on the bottom bunk no I laid restless next to her like my parents but with our stuffed animals lined like soldiers at our backs witness to us speaking hushed fingertips against fingertips exchanging static shocks from cotton or inches of hair or proximity she asked if we could play mommy and daddy get married like mommy and daddy love like mommy and daddy I let her fold against me a single piece of

wrinkled construction paper creased and creased triangles against triangles until we’re a crane or a fortune teller or half an airplane this is how adults love each other she says all I can do is nod and let my girl heart pound oh god was this it was this the feeling that men got when they looked at women because this can’t be the way girls feel about girls gasping and laughing under false writhing a caricature of intimacy tiny hand puppets fumbling bashful secrets in the dark 

Fig. 3

perlite teeth
wired shut
soft enamel
like shale
bird chest
plush ribs
no bras
not yet
blue seams
trench throat
hollow neck
wet sigh
in sleep
thin lips
pink rim
dry spots
but lush
still soft
I think
I think
I think

Fig. 4

 I thought maybe /
if I soaked myself in vinegar long enough /
I could make myself pliable /
plucking boys fresh from the incubator /
ticking off traits from the breeding chart /
that hangs next to my kitchen door /
tracking generations of smiles and eye colors /
comparing them against the broods of my friends /
scribbling clinical notes in the margins /
about feet and mouths and knobbed knees /
dissatisfied with chickens /
their feathered noisy forms /
still seeking reptiles.

Fig. 5

 We are embryos, dual zygotes occupying
the same ossified chamber. If I could reach out
and tear your sac I would, but we float too close,

too delicate for that. I watch you malform
beside me, stunted, sprouting scant cell clusters
instead of fingers and eyes. You gestate reluctant,

tiny heart hammering through molasses yolk, wary
of life and love before either has happened. Blinking
takes eons but I find you when light has been shown

through our shell, the beam as long as my body.
We limbed blobs, mere infants, with nothing to compare
our emerging bodies to. I am peeled from you, rent

from congruity, pried flailing, wondering why it is
that one half must always be left behind. I, survivor,
salvaged, spot you tailless and nerveless below.

 We were supposed to look the same.

Fig. 6

I wanted to kiss you while your parents Slept
But that would mean reaching slow across the Gap
Bridging nerve to tendon to trembling Scale
Forming hesitant life organic from Nothing

I watched you swallow albumen and Wondered
Parenthetical to your resting nascent Form   
Whether love could be carved from Want
And want could be kept somewhere Quiet

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Dina Folgia was an honorable mention for the 2021 Penrose Poetry Prize. Her work appears (or will be appearing) in Ninth Letter, South Florida Poetry Journal, Defunkt Magazine, Kissing Dynamite Poetry, and Sidereal Magazine. She is a poetry editor for Storm Cellar.