It did not matter
if we cut the planaria
lengthwise or crosswise.
It did not matter
If we cut it once or twelve
or 279 times. Each piece of flatworm
could regenerate its missing parts
and become a complete organism.
Odd to me now that I
was in no way squeamish about
slicing the small black creature that moved
about the petri dish.
I was curious, I guess.
*
In the dream
a man waits outside the door.
Inside, there’s a party. It’s warm
and humming and bright.
As the people walk out,
he chops off their heads.
He spares no one.
I watch through a window.
He is wearing a hard white mask.
Every time I wake myself,
I fall back into the dream,
and I am watching,
watching as he carries on
his relentless, gruesome work.
Then it’s my turn to leave.
Instead of trying to wake,
I stand in the doorway
and before stepping into the dark,
I look at his covered face
and say to him in an even voice,
“What do you have to teach me?”
He drops the arm that wields the axe
and lets it hang at his side.
I can hear him weeping
inside his mask.
“I am so lonely,”
he says.
*
If you slice the planaria in half
down its center, and each side
is retained on the organism,
it is possible for the planaria
to regenerate two heads
and continue to live this way.
*
Red as hibiscus, bright as a million suns,
Chhinnamasta stands
on the entangled couple.
She has cut off her own head
and holds it in one hand. In the other,
she holds the dripping scimitar.
Blood springs from her neck
in three long jets and is guzzled
by her own severed head and her two
devotees. God, she is beautiful,
naked except for a garland
of skulls around her neck.
She’s ferocious, and so alive.
*
And so when I feel the blade
on my neck, it is no surprise
to find my own hand
attached to the handle, guided
by something mysterious
and unrelenting, something
longing to know itself.
*
Yes friend, this is
a metaphor.
*
It is unwise to reproduce
alone, say the scientists.
Sex enhances the survival of a species.
Increases genetic diversity.
Plus, as the man and woman
coupled beneath Chhinnamasta’s feet
would seem to suggest,
there is so much pleasure
to discover.
*
In this metaphor,
the head always grows back.
Sometimes with a mask.
Sometimes while the blade
is still soaked and red.
But sometimes,
the regeneration doesn’t
happen right away.
Sometimes I forget
to be afraid.