How a Salamander Sheds
by Tiel Aisha Ansari
I want to shed like a salamander, shucking hands like pale filmy gloves. Like someone coming off shift at the ER, shedding gloves of purple nitrile, discarding them in the bin. No: a salamander eats its skin when it molts. I want to change my skin like that. I want to get rid of the hard layer I’ve grown since everything went to hell, under the mask that made my face smell like a dirty sock. I’d like to forget the gloves and the smell of Lysol everywhere, but I’d also like to believe that nothing is wasted and that I could eat this discarded armor and grow stronger. That I could eat my gloves, and my mask, and my own face.
Tiel Aisha Ansari is a Sufi warrior poet. Her work has been featured by Fault Lines Poetry, Windfall, KBOO and an Everyman’s Library anthology, among many others. Her collections include Knocking from Inside, High-Voltage Lines, Country Well-Known as an Old Nightmare’s Stable, The Day of My First Driving Lesson, and Dervish Lions. She works as a data analyst for the Portland Public School district and is president emerita of the Oregon Poetry Association and former host of the Wider Window Poetry show on KBOO Community Radio.