This poem which is dedicated to what it means to exist without desire for another, to remain whole and complete in yourself. Fromia, the starfish genus, becomes a mirror for this state of being, its’ limbs repeating themselves, multiplying, surviving alone. It is about self-contained, about the quiet state of enduring without witness, without need. Limbs press into water and stone not to grasp, but to memorize themselves.
I am Fromia.
No mouth, no mate, no need.
Just the geometry of ''me'',
pressing against water
like an irksome thought.
Salty pods in my hollows,
and I memorize the grams.
Each arm, a vague resounding
of the one beside it,
repeating, multiplying,
a lattice that asks nothing
of the tide.
The ocean forgets me
and I forgive it.
It does not need my trace,
I do not seek its proof.
I unfurl quietly
where others expect rhythm,
surviving in the gulf
between hunger and demand.
They glance at me
for a fracture, a fissure,
a pulse in need of another.
They do not see
the patience etched in my limbs,
the illusion of integrality,
pressing against stone,
memorizing borders
that no one else shall touch.
Some nights, I'll trace my arms
against cold sand
and feel expectation sink into my flesh.
I fold, I bend,
and still I endure
as I am Fromia:
tide and sun and mirrored light,
a constellation
that claims only itself.
Light glides across me,
and I mark it
like a tachycardiac's heartbeat
that belongs only to its own periodicity.
I unfold,
I multiply,
in the still ocean water,
needing no eyes,
needing no word.
I am Fromia.
Limbs articulate themselves,
they press into the current,
each surface a record
of fortitude felt in water and stone.
I remain
without rite,
without grasping,
without desire
that reaches into another.
I am enough.
I am more than enough.
I am the residue of tides
when the ocean omits to call,
when no one leans into my dimensions,
when the current ignores my name
I am my own tide,
my own star,
my own constellation,
folded into the quiet
of all that endures
without claim.
-AT
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