Jennifer Crow

one-celled romance
ultimate self-love
divides
and conquers

slick, thick-shelled
bottom feeders
scrape carapace
and tangle
their offspring's future

swayed by the tides
streamlined swarms
school and copulate under
a nearer moon

heavy-legged things
struggle out of the ocean's mirror
to dance on strange shores
and brood in the shallows
with a multitude of spawn

a dusting of pollen
spreads passion's fruits
on the wind

wild wings spin
mid-air tapestries
of lust
into the perfect egg

slinking in shadow
warm blood whispers
of wombs and futures

and you
and I
fur-clad
balance all these pasts
like whirling plates
a billion years and more
of change
brush each other
skin to skin

Shy and nocturnal, Jennifer Crow has never been photographed in the wild. However, you can catch up with her work in recent issues of Mythic Delirium, Star*Line, Strange Horizons and the Magazine of Speculative Poetry.