The Ecstasy of Mollusk

I am facedown in the grass
of my backyard, inching, rooting
forward like a newborn — not knowing
where I am
going but
confidently contracting muscle
by subtle muscle,
grabbing the ground underneath
with the soft, wet foot that is my belly.

It is delicious to let my cheek and lips and chin
press
then the front of my neck
and nipples
and malleable organs
and mound and thigh and toes
smelling into the soft earth
to use everything on the frontside
of me, in concert
to move.

Oozing unabashedly,
my direction is emergent.
I allow the peristalsis of myself to push me where it will
along the ground
and right up the wall
in front of me.
Now suddenly I’m inching
at a pure languid vertical
— who knew?!
I didn’t.

I also didn’t know
— until now —
that my skull is a shell and
up there
I am a snail curled in on myself almost
unbearably
tender.
Fold upon fold of
preciousness
coiling in on itself --
the protector part is so hard
because the sensitive part
is so soft.

I am so very soft
and
squishy.

I gently reach out
a siphon
a whisper
a delicate finger from
inside my round clench
to the outside of my
safe citadel
not seeing but
feeling
and sensing
and taking in the cold air
of completely unknown
and open space.

I stop spiraling and
unfurl,
slowly slinking outside,
a glistening trail,
gradually breaching.
Because I can,
I leave my
mind
and my skeleton
behind.