Erika Dane Kielsgard: THE SCORPION • Cleaver Magazine

Erika Dane Kielsgard
THE SCORPION

We tear her limbs to divide our fear.
Her mangled segments reflect
hell mouths in mortal eyes.
She does not inspire the sacred.
Adorned with a swarm of insects,
her myth is a mask for history.
Her claws do not grasp
haphazard or hapless.
Do not let her slip
through your fingers
while your iris clings
to the muse invoked:
a stagnant self-portrait
in a shallow pool,
a shower of pearls
she likens to foam.
The scorpion is an ocean,
the context of a wave.
She sheds her skin seven times
before devouring the dawn,
carrying within her abdomen
small heavens, the eternal call.

Erika Dane Kielsgard is an emerging artist who received her BA in Psychology from George Mason University, where she wrote her award-winning research proposal, “Poetry and Journaling Therapy in PTSD” (2013). Her art was selected for exhibit in Fall for the Book’s “Call and Response” (2013, 2014). In her free time, Erika sings and raises arthropods. Her poetry has appeared in Rust + Moth (Autumn 2015) and is forthcoming in Bone Bouquet (Spring 2016, Issue 7.1).