From a Spiral Notebook: Caterpillars and Opposites

Hi all,

This is the time of year when caterpillars start to make an appearance in my brain.

Chocolate lily: a little sweetness before the squick that comes next.

It’s spring. Riotous spring in grade three and there are puddles in the shallow ditch by the trees at the edge of the playground by the school. You’re not supposed to play in the trees that mark the boundary between our school and the Catholic school that neighbours ours. But there are caterpillars in the trees, fuzzy caterpillars with stripes lengthwise along their bodies and bright eyes and a thousand feet that will walk all along your arm if you let them, if you don’t get the crawly feeling and go ew and knock them off into the grass at your feet.

The boys like to pulp them. Find as many as they can and put them on a rock with a little dip in it and pulverise them into soup. You stay away from the boys.

You are here to test yourself. Test your ew. If you can let a caterpillar crawl all the way up your arm without freaking out, without having to flick your arm to get the caterpillar off, right now! If you can do that, then you aren’t afraid of caterpillars anymore. Then they won’t scare you and make you feel sick.

The caterpillar crawls onto your stick. You take a deep breath, and then you press the stick against the fat of your forearm. At first it doesn’t seem to want to crawl off the stick, but then it does. Creepy scary crawly warm and tickly. You hold still, every muscle cramping, every muscle shaking, you hold still so tight.

You close your eyes because you think that will make it better, but it doesn’t. It makes the crawling worse. A shudder like a sneeze and the caterpillar falls to the grass. You are scared after all.

You’ll try again tomorrow.

FROM THE SPIRAL NOTEBOOK

I don’t remember how this poem came to be, what sparked it. I just found its title a little while ago.

Asking a Poet to Explain a Word

The opposite of grass
is not sky.
They are brothers
both colouring beyond
the lines.

The peach is a fruit
pregnant with its opposite
curled brown stone waiting
for you to bite.

Grey turns opposite in the morning 
suddenly enough light to turn leaves green
wet from night’s incessant 
licking with its dark dog’s tongue.

NOTES

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Yours,
Kelsey Andrews