Earthworm

My son is an earthworm
pink and slippery

with no exoskeleton to retreat to
he crawls everywhere naked

prone to being cut into two
at the touch of any careless slipper

and this is a world where
weakness invites ideas

like: how would it feel
to make an earthworm wriggle in pain?

like: what an experiment it must be
to cut it in two equal parts

like: let us initiate it into a tortured freakish dance
with just a pinch of table salt

like: isn’t it fun to watch it die slowly
from salt, from the stuff of tears?

I fear, that weakness turns humans to sharks
and that my son smells like fresh blood

and you know that when conditions are primed
not even saints can resist the kill

I fear the glances they steal at him semi-secretly
full of suspicions too abominable to voice

I wish to tell him to hide away from light,
away from two faced eyes
to burrow deeper, to stay with detritus

But oh! the poor thing
has insisted on crawling out of his hole

has insisted, that he too deserves the cool rain
and what mother is a mother who will stop him?

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Ebele Mọgọ is a story teller, a scientist, and an innovator.  Her writing has been published in the following places: Newfound, Third Point Press, Munyori Literary Magazine, Stockholm review of literature, Susan the Journal, The Offing, Saraba magazine, Tap Lit, Narrative Northeast, Brittle Paper, the Rising Phoenix, Interartive, among other places. She is on Twitter as @ebyral