first remember the folded self
paper layers a nesting
being unfulfilled perhaps
there is a bird thereat the center
goldfinch eager
at the window, wings blurring
to shadow unsolid
when you began you were budded
shut fist you were
tourmaline tight bound
and mineral, casting prisms
at the walls, the forest world
around you
the world now machine gun
seraphim civet
and pipeline shovel and
basket of heavy
what it is heavy
on your shoulders
but you are still unfolding
Ambalila Hemsell is a writer, musician, and educator from Colorado. She holds an MFA from the Helen Zell Writers’ Program at the University of Michigan. She was a 2015-2016 Writer-in-Residence at InsideOut Literary Arts in Detroit. Her poetry can be found in RipRap Literary Journal, and is forthcoming in The American Literary Review, Virga, and Ruminate.