Jalina Mhyana

If you give him a dollar
he’ll climb a palm tree,
whack a frond to the ground
& meet you back on the
sidewalk where he’ll begin
his folding

These fronds are actually
cricket skin – I never knew
until that trip to Puerto Rico
that all skin must grow
on trees like any other fruit
& that there are people
who know how to fold it

He sang as he wove the body,
organic greens twisting,
ducking, weaving, giving
up the deliciousness of sun
for the night songs that would
become their lullaby

He left one leg long, attached
still to the frond it was birthed of
preventing it from springing
out of his hand
before I paid my dollar

In the town square I freed it,
snipped the ungainly appendage
like an umbilicus
that connected it still to the plant
kingdom it was plucked from
& watched as it practiced being free

Jalina Mhyana is co-editor of Rock Salt Plum Poetry Review. Her chapbook Spikeseed is forthcoming from Bad Moon Books in January. Jalina's poetry has been published, or will be published, in Room of One's own, Japanophile Press, Slow Trains, Erosha, Eclectica, Moxie Magazine, Peshekee River Poetry, Verse Libre Quarterly, Spitjaw Review, Salt River Review, Branches Quarterly, among others. She has lived in northern Japan for the past six years, where she has owned and operated an American massage therapy college and massage practice. Jalina can be contacted at editors@rocksaltplum.com