Daniel Dias Callahan

Silk Farming 

The knuckled mulberry tree butchered
with impatient cuts
        beams with new life.
 
For two weeks,
I have traced the budding growth
watched it become fledgling twigs
that gyrate in springtime wind.
                       
Last fall’s pruning—
            a bundle of mulberry branches—
basks under a wet March sun in the center of the backyard.
 
The branches, twisted and tied together
like long strands of my mother’s hair
tangled around plastic spokes
of the brush she used to comb my hair.
She said, such a handsome boy.
Then walked me to kindergarten.
 
In the fall of 1999, Ms. A brought in shoeboxes
for everyone to farm their own silkworms—
their chalkwhite bodies pulsed as they moved. 
 
Walking home,
box in hand,
         I searched for leaves
to fatten the worms.
 
Though each neighbor had a mulberry tree
the leaves were never within my reach.
 
I watched
the flicker and flex
of their mandibles carve out
the last mulberry leaf’s flesh.
 
Their bodies dwindled and darkened.

Daniel Dias Callahan is a writer from Sacramento, California. He received his Master of Fine Arts from the University of San Francisco and a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from the University of San Diego. His work has appeared in California Quarterly, Sonora Review, and Thin Air Magazine, among others.