Silkworm Snail

It must be true that we survive our deaths.

We are mollusks, really,
Trailing our preemptive ectoplasm everywhere.
It has to be that way.

Because I realize that I'm leaving traces here and there.
I can tug at the tendrils behind me
(Not ribbon-graceful in the wind
but sticky and viscous, complicated patterns branching out from the strands,
into patterns I didn't know I'd traced).
All over every spot that meant something.

If I cast a thought back to one of these exigencies,
To some heart I've grasped at or body I've finger-tip-traced or place I've lost my breath to,
The slime tightens, tugs at me from behind.
And there I am, stuck to that other end of the trail,
glued to that lump in the road and my throat.

And vice versa, when he or she looks my direction from miles away,
or the moon lights up that bend in the road--
You know, there above Wounded Knee where they set up the Hotchkisses--
I hiccup, turn just a bit,
Feel my irises expand and my tear ducts swell,
Gather my mucus to me, tremble to shed some more on this moment,
And wonder if this will ever become a silken strand,
A web with a design I didn't plan? Or just that perfect coil,
The golden ratio's baby?

When I've expired,
I will have to revisit these moments, places, thoughts.
I'm stamped on them, and where can a lost spirit go but where it finds its puddles?
It must be that way, for there they are, my steps in slime.