Self as Duality

The bath, too hot, leaves a tideline of red along my skin, so half of me is red and the other half is freckles. I am half winter and half summer, a remnant of sun, the equinox, our hopeful faces turned sunwards in the expectation of change. I am a memory of salt (water, sweat, flavour), the evening hours swallowed by the dark, the snake near my grandmother’s house, who was frozen on the path searching for winter sun. I’m his denial, his stubbornness. I’m the inevitable, the natural ways of things. I am the full moon light, the first early morning chill, birdsong in the street-lit dark, a creature of light who is hungry, who is starved. I am restless like the ocean, three months behind the air’s chill, knowing what is to come. I am the last of the apricots plump with sun, a tease, a last hurrah, solar eclipse, sky ablaze with autumn’s colours, apple orchard waiting for another season. I am my own reminder. I curl up like a creature, furl up like a leaf, settle down into sleep, in acceptance because I have no other choice, because I am nature. The sun always returns, for now I sleep.