inside
the virus
feel
the fibers
flexing
pressing
feather tremble
impulse
down a shallow
nerve stem
chain
to chain
sense to
sense the
rush
the bright
spikes
casting
tendrils
grasping
wrapping
lung in
velvet
smother
what it
means to live
Star Coulbrooke is the Inaugural Poet Laureate of Logan City, Utah, coordinator of the Helicon west community reading series. She is author of three poetry collections, Thin Spines of Memory (2017), Both Sides from the Middle (2018), and most recently, City of Poetry (2019).