Romana Iorga

Survival Instinct

My words are blind moles, polydactylic.
They grab meaning like worms and paralyze it.
Their saliva is lethal, do not hold them
on your tongue. Avid dirt-tossers, they burrow
in and uproot your vegetables. Don’t be angry.
There’s still some fruit at the top of the tree.
Untouched, because all the birds have fallen
from the sky. On account of exhaustion
or of all the oxygen gone to feed the flames.
In their subterranean getaways, the moles
breathe carbon dioxide. They dig. They dig
farther and farther away from me. See me crouch
at the mouth of the burrow with a flashlight
while behind me the sky is melting like glass.

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Romana Iorga is the author of Temporary Skin (Glass Lyre Press, 2024) and a woman made entirely of air (Dancing Girl Press, 2023). Her poems have appeared in various journals, including New England Review, Lake Effect, The Nation, as well as on her poetry blog at clayandbranches.com.