After the Stroke


In dreams
I go back to being
that pink doll, from before,
when I wore
the weightless, pastel days
like scarves of smoke,
barely noticed.
Now I struggle to make my slug-hand
ooze across the table,
my slug-lips spill and stumble,
slug-mind leaves a pearly trail
of slime instead of words.
No longer at that sugared tea party
I called life,
but deep in the mouth
of a moldering forest,
chewing and being chewed,
transformed into a different sort
of creature entirely.