Night School

Now that you’ve got it clean
down to the bone
teach me
how to use that deep
explosion
of pain at the body’s core
to push past the necessities of flesh
to stand here bare-boned
beside you
ash white under the moon
not sleeping like the infant grub
curled in the tree’s hollow
or the full-formed but yet
unrealized imago
still quiet in its husk
but balanced in the space between
unready and unopened
wearing a crown of horn
sharp and bright
as a diadem of stars