Porcupines

Longing
For warmth
We drew close
Starving
We fed each other
Our love
prickly pain
made us
withdraw
sore
all over
we could
not have
done better
at the time

a porcupine is
a porcupine

there is nothing
to forgive

Now
I am no
Porcupine
That tight
And prickly
Skin does
Not fit me
Anymore

I stretched
And grew
left the cave
an arctic time
when
porcupine-love
saved me
from dying of
exposure

after a metamorphosis
there is no
returning to
a former self

I cannot be
With porcupines
Anymore
Because
I am something
Completely
New and different.

^

Biography

Ulrike Gerbig is a poet who lives and works in Germany. She has been writing poetry in English for several years now. Her first collection, "Every Woman's Blues" (Lapwing Press, Belfast, 2004) reflects thoughts and feelings of a modern European woman. She just finished her second collection of poetry, "Love in all the right places".