Mantid

[LaGitana]

Aish, this is the poem you referred to yesterday? I have only a few comments and some are from an actual Mantis breeders POV... you can take them or leave them...

The end is embedded in the beginning:

So it should come as no surprise
my squall bites and stings in unholy rage, (mantids do not sting, they have spines on their front legs that are used when striking prey but are not poisonous BUT they are merciless!)
acid rain against the quarried walls

crumbled at the foot of my heart,
which beats to spite me.

My death has yet to deliver my life,
and I am poised (maybe do without the "and")
to forget long days
and endless summers.

Rain pops like hot grease (love this line)
against the fake sky of my room.
I feed off false warmth and stale iron.

Blood in my mouth. (I might consider life instead of blood)

Still no howl,
where my soul is stone
or pillars of salt.

You be Sodom, and I'll play Gomorrah, (not sure about "play")
trapping would-be trespassers and tourists.

The desert was as close as I came.
To the sea.

Winter turns a book of faith
into myths of transformations.

I long to crystallize,
coaxed out of rock and sea stars
and return -

as elaborate architecture. (i love this line and think that it says so much. it could say more if you could somehow tie it together with the first line of the next strophe and do away with the last line... as that is implied overall... imo)

I could bloom from the ancients
and emerge
with an elongated body and wings.

A mantid.
Enigmatic, yet uneloquent. (why did you choose uneloquent here?)

Just a few ideas that I had.... Matids are amazing to study. I am normally not an insect person but I raise them with my sons and for the past three years we have become fascinated by them... You have done an amazing job weaving them into poetry...