Symbiosis

I)
When metastasis unpacks her cavity,
are you surprised to find tapeworms?
Scolex diminutive besides wet trailing,
hard smell of iron waxing formaldehyde.
Curled inside, misshapen: the taking shape
inwards like vertigo engulfing.

II)
Sure there are pictures everywhere, but
no tangible remnants of you anywhere.
Here, this day, you don’t grasp purpose:
you host propagations, rooting somewhere.
You never blew out any birthday candles,
is this how childhood suffocates?

III)
Two million years ago, chestode eggs
shattered unflinchingly within
percolating porous nature of time.
Feel the pounding of ghost feet,
glitching stolen fury, Möbius strip
flimsily finite between fingertips.

IV)
You slip between street lights, turns
still sharp like surrender. Which is to say,
spirits tangle between morning light.
She leaves your name in her will.
The flimsy one. Synonymous come hard.
Light is as heavy or light as existence.

Ellen Zhang

Ellen Zhang is a physician-writer who has studied under Pulitzer Prize winner Jorie Graham and poet Rosebud Ben-Oni. She has been recognized by the DeBakey Poetry Prize, Dibase Poetry Contest, and as a National Student Poet Semifinalist. Her works appear or are forthcoming in Chestnut Review, The Shore Poetry, Hekton International, and elsewhere.