Catechumen

Catechumen Kéchi Nne Nomu (bio) Hungry for the life of briefanimals, the life once of a spotted whitemoth, I kept finding themcorpses. Their bodies crushedjust so I misconstrued the meaningof beauty, wings spread over dirt. This was a prior life. I was young.I ran errands, envied shortlife cycles & indulged in comparative metamorphosis.Once, of the ceramic bluevirgin mother builtinto the parapet of a nearby parish,I asked to be morphed quickby winds lifting my skirt. In September, the days got perfectand they got ordinary again. The last sunpushed fingers through wet trees after rain, throughthe country of nests in dark branches.Abandoned, at the foot of a tree, I found a nest.The site of a new hatching. I imagined entering thisafterlife, learning rapture: End Page 25 I knew already the string theories governing the hazethat would settle at dusk over our city by the battlementswhere the wars had been fought.War boats settled in siege. I understood history. Yet, when I crossed a field returning,I avoided the scene. All of it.The dead moths de-winged & unmorphed. The newbornbirds coming alive in their nests and mortal. End Page 26 Kéchi Nne Nomu kéchi nne nomu is a 2022 Narrative Magazine Poetry Contest finalist. Her work has appeared in The Sun Magazine, Narrative Magazine, Boston Review and elsewhere. She holds an MFA in poetry from NYU and teaches at the University of Virginia. Copyright © 2024 Yale University