GLOW WORMS
GLOW WORMS
by Nicole Kuwik
Just drunk enough to see the similarities
between Edie Sedgwick and a pack of glow worms,
doomed amidst their beautiful spindrals,
I recall last night’s dream
I scream from inside a 1960’s blue
polyester dress, as chemicals are sprayed
from a vaguely marked white aerosol can
with dark brown lettering,
by a well-knowing
older female–
“I CAN’T BREATHE!!!!”
A disquieting compression of time into insight. I may be missing some references here, but I think the poet sees herself both as Edie Sedgwick and the “well-knowing older female,” each “doomed;” earlier, “inside” the “polyester dress,” later, as the more aware person she is now, who comes to see her past is suffocating her. The “beautiful spindrals” are a mirage.