Why this unappeasable urge for poetry 

crunching with off-cast cicada shells?

Split up the back like dirty slips,

the ghostly cases stand 

unmoving in my head.

They mark the places from which 

these prawn-eyed death-rattlers

have lifted themselves 

on broad leadlight blades

into summer’s ripening dryness.

A far-off version of me 

holds one up close,

Yorick-style.

The alien skin balances 

on my up-turned palm,

primed to catch even the slightest 

breath of breeze.

It’s hard not to wonder

just how it might feel 

to peel oneself

from within a congealing shroud

and leave a pair of crystal domes

where obsidian eyes

once nested unblinking.