Noll Griffin




The tadpoles passed before they saw our mechanic neighbor’s offered pond.

Big grape bodies with stem tails grew translucent legs in their oil drum tank.

Couldn’t hold them, could only love them in their olive shimmer, swimming in circles.

Illustrating my education,

Textbook anatomy turned pop-up book page.

The silkworms were just as charming. I pictured myself among them so easily,

Spinning on leaves from a sawed-off mulberry tree, pale tubes undulating, just making.

They all got their names and disappeared into opposite mothballs, thrilling capsules of life.

They came out like brides waving backwards beneath hoops and veils,

Clots of incense and candle flames flowing out the window.

Mobile pheromone labs in marshmallow bodies,

Functional flight less likely past the stiff curtains

No matter how I wished for calm migration.

I could never be a better relative than one of them,

Braiding wrists with breathing ribbons tying me to tininess.





Noll Griffin is a visual artist, writer, and musician based in Berlin, Germany. His poetry has appeared in The Purposeful Mayonnaise, The Wild Word, and Reap Thrill among others and his first chapbook titled “Tourist Info” is available through Alien Buddha Press. You can find him on Instagram at @nollprints or on Tumblr/Twitter/Bluesky under @nollthere.