Wren Searcy

Cicadas as Trans Allegory

Last year, cicadas crawled out of the warm summer soil.

Seventeen years they waited,

curled in their umbral cradles.

A voice inside them whispered,

told them emerge from the underground,

to leave their homes empty

their windows flung open to the sky.

What small miracle rests in their body

marking each year until they see the sun?

And look, the same miracle resides in you.

How did you know when it was time

to dig yourself from your earthen bed

and emerge somewhere new,

your body clean,

your throat screaming of beginning?

Wren Searcy (they/them) is a non-binary, queer poet living in Atlanta, GA.