National Poetry Month 6: Exuvia

Exuvia

Jack Garcia 

A frantic woman wailing in the night,

for help, she begs, and answers to her plight.

Four teens come running out the door to see

a hanging man like cobwebs in the tree. 

My son, my son, she screeches at the moon,

with fists like rocks slung at his warm cocoon.

No flying butterfly, but fetid flies

that swarm severely ‘round the thing that dies. 

At just sixteen, the smallest girl steps up

and like a spider climbs the web to cup

her hands around the noose to free the prey.

A thud, a shriek, the others look away. 

One sad cicada fallen from his shell,

for no one heard the buzzing he knew well.