Shapeshifter

Shapeshifter

When the blue sky is masked
by joyless swells of grey,
and my breath is a snapshot
of rolling white words,
I am reminded of a dead November
and a girl I no longer know.

In the incarnation of a graceless, plumpish pre-teen,
I welcomed the early day as it seeped through
the pewter clouds, searching for lemon-smeared curls
and seawater eyes; my best friend,
whose existence had given weight
to my own self-esteem.
There had been no hint
of a forked tongue or fangs;
no, this was to come later.

It was our habit to retrace our steps
around the baseball diamond,
stamping the plate with rubber-soled shoes,
wanting to leave some kind of mark.
In my innocence, I’d failed to notice
the sinuous tracks that grooved
in the dirt behind her as she moved.

That November morning,
as I neared the playground wall
I saw that someone else stood in my place,
A smell of smugness betrayed some sour design,
and their smirks were ominous,
alluding to some shared secret
as I heard the sounds of slithers
in the sickly, yellowed grass.

I stood silent,
a point in an awkward triangle,
knowing what loomed above us.
The leaves began to menace me
swirling and floating weightlessly,
caught on the air like discarded reptilian casings.

My kindred sister had lips that glittered
and eyes that were hemmed with black.
Her plump, puerile face was now chalky and oval,
and her newly cut cheeks were slapped
with the cold blood of late-autumn mornings.

She had shifted shape,
morphed into a pubescent demi-goddess,
and I was still bauble-haired and artless;
a square who got stuck in the mouth
of round holes.

My expulsion was like the pop of a balloon:
air hissing out, in a long pathetic whimper,
while the two of them reveled in twisted, animal triumph
as the old skin lay shed upon the pavement.
I wondered how I could not have known
that a twelve-year-old could cackle.

On that cold day, I never heard myself hit the ground.
I did not feel the scraping of my knees
or the bruising of an already tender psyche.
I scarcely remember how I picked myself up,
or how I managed to walk away.

The scars remain, though slightly faded,
but they argue against the resilience of children
just the same.
Only I know they are there:
jagged reminders of a biting lesson
learned on a late-autumn playground.